Natural selection and social preferences

Jörgen Weibull and Marcus Salomonsson (marcus.salomonsson@hhs.se)
Additional contact information
Marcus Salomonsson: Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Postal: Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

No 588, SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance from Stockholm School of Economics

Abstract: A large number of individuals are randomly matched into groups, where each group plays a finite symmetric game. Individuals breed true. The expected number of surviving offspring depends on own material payoff, but may also, due to cooperative breeding and/or reproductive competition, depend on the material payoffs to other group members. The induced population dynamic is equivalent with the replicator dynamic for a game with payoffs derived from those in the original game. We apply this selection dynamic to a number of examples, including prisoners' dilemma games with and without a punishment option, coordination games, and hawk-dove games. For each of these, we compare the outcomes with those obtained under the standard replicator dynamic. By way of a revealed-preference argument, our selection dynamic can explain certain "altruistic" and "spiteful" behaviors that are consistent with individuals having social preferences.

Keywords: Group selection; social preferences; altruism; fairness. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C73 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2005-02-28, Revised 2005-09-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-evo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2006, pages 79-92.

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:hastef:0588

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