Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups

Daniel Friedman and Nirvikar Singh

Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz

Abstract: We discuss how small group interactions overcome evolutionary problems that might otherwise erode vengefulness as a preference trait. The basic viability problem is that the fitness benefits of vengeance often do not cover its personal cost. Even when a sufficiently high level of vengefulness brings increased fitness, at lower levels, vengefulness has a negative fitness gradient. This leads to the threshold problem: how can vengefulness become established in the first place? If it somehow becomes established at a high level, vengefulness creates an attractive niche for cheap imitators, those who look like highly vengeful types but do not bear the costs. This is the mimicry problem, and unchecked it could eliminate vengeful traits. We show how within-group social norms can solve these problems even when encounters with outsiders are also important.

Date: 2004-04-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/0xp29105.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups (2004)
Working Paper: Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups (2004)
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:cdl:ucscec:qt0xp29105

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().