Cooperation is related to dispersal patterns in Sino-Tibetan populations

Jia-Jia Wu, Ting Ji, Qiao-Qiao He, Juan Du and Ruth Mace ()
Additional contact information
Jia-Jia Wu: Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, Dept. of Anthropology, UCL
Ting Ji: Theoretical Ecology Group, Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qiao-Qiao He: Theoretical Ecology Group, Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Juan Du: Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, Dept. of Anthropology, UCL
Ruth Mace: Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, Dept. of Anthropology, UCL

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract There is growing recognition in both evolutionary biology and anthropology that dispersal is key to establishing patterns of cooperation. However, some models predict that cooperation is more likely to evolve in low dispersal (viscous) populations, while others predict that local competition for resources inhibits cooperation. Sex-biased dispersal and extra-pair mating may also have an effect. Using economic games in Sino-Tibetan populations with strikingly different dispersal patterns, we measure cooperation in 36 villages in southwestern China; we test whether social structure is associated with cooperative behaviour toward those in the neighbourhood. We find that social organization is associated with levels of cooperation in public goods and dictator games and a resource dilemma; people are less cooperative towards other villagers in communities where dispersal by both sexes is low. This supports the view that dispersal for marriage played an important role in the evolution of large-scale cooperation in human society.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9693 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9693

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9693

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().