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Chapter 9
 The
evolution of human social behavior
and formation of social and economic
structures
 The expression of social behavior across
diverse settings, in experiments, and in
game scenarios
 Way
in which humans primarily interact
with one another to meet and optimize
their well-being
 Basic
needs driving early social exchange
• Protection and self-defense from predators
• Resource sharing
 Still
alive in contemporary social exchange
 Humans are equipped to cooperate
• Cooperation is an effective strategy: benefits from
trading things of value
 Theorized
by John Stuart Mill
• Decisions and behaviors are guided by whether
happiness is increased or decreased
 Key
factor in human exchange
• People make rational calculations to maximize
their return of value
 No
matter the size of the social exchange
structure, its elementary forms lie in the
basics of social behavior
• Places importance on both field and
experimental research
• Overlooks the role of irrational behavior
 Emotions
play a role in the outcomes of
social exchanges
• Factors affect the exchange context, exchange
process, and exchange outcomes
 Internal
emotions are not always fully
expressed outwardly
• Displayed emotions are based on social norms
• Release of emotions controlled by cognition
 Kollock
(1994)
• Test of commitment and trust in undergrad
students
• Students were given role as either buyer or seller,
with some buyers knowing the quality of the good
before purchase and some knowing the quality
after purchase
• Conditions of uncertainty were associated with
greater commitment and trust of a buyer to a seller
 Molm, Takabashi, and
Peterson (2000)
• Test of negotiated versus reciprocal exchanges
 Reciprocal: individual provides goods without
knowing what they will receive in return
 Negotiated: predetermined trade agreements
• Trust and behavioral commitment in the partner
was greater in reciprocal exchange conditions
 Strong
Reciprocity
• Why humans cooperate with others even though
there is no relatedness or obvious short-term
gain
• Evolved sense of sociality
• Evolved sense of fairness
 Humans
act on principles of fairness
• Welfare programs: 70% of Americans did not
think welfare was fair to working people,
whereas fewer Americans were concerned
about the costs
• Free riders: Cooperators will punish or penalize
free riders even if there is no direct material
gain
 Impact of oxytocin
• Released during pair-bonding activities
• Helps facilitate trust among humans during social
interaction
 Use of brain imaging
• Study 1: Mutual cooperation during an
experimental game was correlated with areas of the
brain that involve rewards
• Study 2: Participants who cooperated had greater
activation in regions that theoretically serve to
delay reward, thus facilitating cooperative decisions
 Power
differential among social exchanges
• Control of limited resources creates leverage
• Molm (1990) found that structural power has direct
effects on social exchange outcomes
 Strategies
to deal with power differentials
• Obtain a resource the power holder does not have
• Find alternative sources of the resource
• Get along without the resource
• Attempt to force the power holder to give you the
resource
 Behavior
benefitting another organism while
being detrimental to the organism performing
the behavior
• e.g. jumping into a river to save a drowning stranger
 Benefits
the long-term self-interest of organisms
• Altruistic outweighs nonaltruistic behavior in long run
• Humans rely on one another and are mutually
interdependent
• Immense opportunities to choose between altruistic
or free-riding actions
 Real
Altruism
• Behavior where there is no premeditated
calculation of what might be received if altruistic
behavior is initiated
 Calculated
Altruism
• Premeditated calculation about receiving a
benefit for altruistic behavior
 “Cheaters”
• Exploiters of altruistic behavior by nonaltruists without
any consequence to the nonaltruists
 Gross
Cheating
• Failure to give anything at all in return
 Subtle
Cheating
• Always giving less than what was given
*Adapted from Trivers (1971).
 Tendency
to cooperate with strangers and
punish cheaters, even at a personal cost
 Impact of strong reciprocity
• Predicate moral sentiments of contemporary
people valuing freedom and equality
• Possession of trait allows one to contribute to
group survival in dire times, even if a minority
• In dire times, groups whose members possess the
trait will outperform groups low on strong
reciprocity.
 Why
do people donate to charities?
• Positive feelings experienced when donating
• Discomfort of saying no due to social pressures
 Cognitive
neuroscience of charitable
giving
• Experiments showed that there is a neural basis
for charitable donations
 Areas of the brain that mediate social bonding and
aversion are activated in altruistic decision making
 May
serve as possible moderators of
altruistic behavior
• Giver in exchange may be influenced by
bigoted viewpoints
• Study in post-apartheid South Africa revealed
insider bias based on participant surnames
 Few
attempts to provide a scale of
altruism
 1981 study assessed altruistic personality
• Questioned: giving blood, giving directions to
strangers, volunteer work, etc.
• Findings correlated with other scales of moral
judgment, empathy, and prosocial values
 Perspective taking
• The ability to get into other person’s shoes and
sense their viewpoints, needs, and distress
 Types of empathy
• Sympathetic concern
 One feels the other’s state of need and tries to make
things better (impulse driven)
• Cognitive empathy
 Appraisal of what caused the other person’s
emotional state and thoughts about amelioration
(rationally driven)
 Objective
• Uncover reasons why people make decisions,
whether they are seemingly rational or irrational
 Basic
theory
• Everyone’s lives involve interactions with others,
with strategies and decisions that can be
modeled using games
• Outcomes are based on the combined behavior
of multiple individuals
 Purpose
• To achieve best possible outcome for oneself in a
difficult situation
 Set-up
• Two bank robbers are questioned separately
• If a robber pleads guilty and rats out his accomplice,
he will go free and his accomplice will get 30 years in
prison.
• If a both robbers plead guilty and rat each other out,
they will both receive 10 years in prison.
• If both keep quiet, they will both get 1 year
 Uses
• Interactions between nations involving decisions of
war and peace, trade and economics, etc.
 Fetal
environment and infancy
 Childhood and adolescence
 Adulthood
 Biosocial
development starts at an early age
 Individual variations in temperament
• Indicates likely variation in altruistic and
cooperation behaviors at later ages
• Impact of parenting on moderating behavioral
tendencies
 Learning
cooperation
• Play with other children: involves sharing
• Observational learning: watching family
members cooperate with each other
 Developing
sense of fair play and equality
• Increased willingness to share between 3- to 4-
year-olds (9%) and 7- to 8-year-olds (45%)
• Continues to solidify through adolescence
 Greater importance on exchanges with peers during
adolescence
 Continued
impact of prosocial behaviors
• Dependence on cooperation with others and
developed functional skills for social exchange
• Influenced by level of agreeableness
 Measured by Five Factor Model of Personality model
 High Agreeableness: getting along with others, caring
about others, and acceptance
 Low Agreeableness: distrust, impatience, and
aggression
Social exchange and cooperation is rooted in the
evolution of social behavior.
 Cooperation among early humans was driven by the
need for protection and resource sharing.
 Emotions play a role in social exchanges.
 Humans have a developed sense of fairness and are
willing to penalize others without obvious self-gain.
 Control of limited resources involves leveraging
power, adding competition, cooperation, and
conflict to social exchanges.
 Altruistic behavior outweighs nonaltruistic behavior
in the long run.
