Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:47:19.442Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The convergent and divergent evolution of social-behavioral economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2016

Bernard J. Crespi
Bernard J. Crespi*
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. [email protected]://www.sfu.ca/biology/faculty/crespi/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Human hunter-gatherers share a suite of traits with social insects, which demonstrates convergent social evolution of these taxa prior to agriculture. Humans differ from social insects in that their divisions of labor are more competitive than cooperative. Resulting higher within-group competition in humans has been alleviated by religion and culturally imposed monogamy, both of which also find parallels among social insects.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e96
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, R. D. (1987) The biology of moral systems. Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Alexander, R. D., Noonan, K. & Crespi, B. J. (1991) The evolution of eusociality. In: The biology of the naked mole rat, ed. Sherman, P. W., Jarvis, J. & Alexander, R. D., pp. 3–44. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Aunger, R. & Greenland, K. (2014) Moral action as cheater suppression in human super organisms: Testing the human superorganism approach to morality. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e321v1. https://dx.doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.321v1 Google Scholar
Betzig, L. (2014) Eusociality in history. Human Nature 25:80–99.Google Scholar
Bowles, S. (2006) Group competition, reproductive leveling, and the evolution of human altruism. Science 314(5805):1569–72.Google Scholar
Crespi, B. J. (2014) The insectan apes. Human Nature 25:6–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crespi, B. J. & Summers, K. (2014) Inclusive fitness theory for the evolution of religion. Animal Behaviour 92:313–23.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (2012) The puzzle of monogamous marriage. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 367:657–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kesebir, S. (2012) The superorganism account of human sociality: How and when human groups are like beehives. Personality and Social Psychology Review 16(3):233–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Norenzayan, A. (2013) Big gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar