The Evolution of Altruism in Spatially Structured Populations

András Németh () and Károly Takács ()
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András Németh: http://bitfeldolgozo.hu/
Károly Takács: http://www.uni-corvinus.hu/~tkaroly

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2007, vol. 10, issue 3, 4

Abstract: The evolution of altruism in humans is still an unresolved puzzle. Helping other individuals is often kinship-based or reciprocal. Several examples show, however, that altruism goes beyond kinship and reciprocity and people are willing to support unrelated others even when this is at a cost and they receive nothing in exchange. Here we examine the evolution of this "pure" altruism with a focus on altruistic teaching. Teaching is modeled as a knowledge transfer which enhances the survival chances of the recipient, but reduces the reproductive efficiency of the provider. In an agent-based simulation we compare evolutionary success of genotypes that have willingness to teach with those who do not in two different scenarios: random matching of individuals and spatially structured populations. We show that if teaching ability is combined with an ability to learn and individuals encounter each other on a spatial proximity basis, altruistic teaching will attain evolutionary success in the population. Settlement of the population and accumulation of knowledge are emerging side-products of the evolution of altruism. In addition, in large populations our simple model also produces a counterintuitive result that increasing the value of knowledge keeps fewer altruists alive.

Keywords: Altruism; Teaching; Knowledge Transfer; Spatially Structured Social Dilemmas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-06-30
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jas:jasssj:2006-66-2

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