Parochial altruism in humans

Helen Bernhard, Urs Fischbacher and Ernst Fehr
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Helen Bernhard: University of Zurich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics

Nature, 2006, vol. 442, issue 7105, 912-915

Abstract: Local favourites Altruism is a vital source of cooperation and maintenance of social order in human societies. In recent years some evolutionary models of human altruism have predicted that parochialism (favouritism towards members of one's own ethnic, racial or language group) is an important feature of human altruism, but there is little empirical or experimental evidence on the matter. Punishment experiments with indigenous groups in Papua New Guinea now demonstrate that altruistic norm compliance and norm enforcement are strongly influenced by favouritism within ethnic, racial or language groups. In many modern societies there are strong political forces drawing on altruistic sentiments towards 'insiders' and aggressive sentiments towards outsiders. This work challenges existing evolutionary theories by implying a deep-seated basis for such behaviour.

Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1038/nature04981

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