A dominant social comparison heuristic unites alternative mechanisms for the evolution of indirect reciprocity

Whitaker, Roger M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8473-1913, Colombo, Gualtiero B., Allen, Stuart M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1776-7489 and Dunbar, Robin I. M. 2016. A dominant social comparison heuristic unites alternative mechanisms for the evolution of indirect reciprocity. Scientific Reports 6 , 31459. 10.1038/srep31459

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Abstract

Cooperation is a fundamental human trait but our understanding of how it functions remains incomplete. Indirect reciprocity is a particular case in point, where one-shot donations are made to unrelated beneficiaries without any guarantee of payback. Existing insights are largely from two independent perspectives: i) individual-level cognitive behaviour in decision making, and ii) identification of conditions that favour evolution of cooperation. We identify a fundamental connection between these two areas by examining social comparison as a means through which indirect reciprocity can evolve. Social comparison is well established as an inherent human disposition through which humans navigate the social world by self-referential evaluation of others. Donating to those that are at least as reputable as oneself emerges as a dominant heuristic, which represents aspirational homophily. This heuristic is found to be implicitly present in the current knowledge of conditions that favour indirect reciprocity. The effective social norms for updating reputation are also observed to support this heuristic. We hypothesise that the cognitive challenge associated with social comparison has contributed to cerebral expansion and the disproportionate human brain size, consistent with the social complexity hypothesis. The findings have relevance for the evolution of autonomous systems that are characterised by one-shot interactions.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Computer Science & Informatics
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General)
Additional Information:	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material.
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
ISSN:	2045-2322
Funders:	EPSRC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 August 2016
Date of Acceptance:	15 July 2016
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2024 12:13
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/93840

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