Carrot or Stick? Group Selection and the Evolution of Reciprocal Preferences

Florian Herold

Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the evolution of both characteristics of reciprocity - the willingness to reward friendly behavior and the willingness to punish hostile behavior. Firstly, preferences for rewarding as well as preferences for punishing can survive evolution provided individuals interact within separated groups. This holds even with randomly formed groups and even when individual preferences are unobservable. Secondly, preferences for rewarding survive only in coexistence with self-interested preferences. But preferences for punishing tend either to vanish or to dominate the population entirely. Finally, the evolution of preferences for rewarding and the evolution of preferences for punishing influence each other decisively. The existence of rewarders enhances the evolutionary success of punishers, but punishers crowd out rewarders.

Keywords: Reciprocity; Evolution of Preferences; Group Selection; Coevolution; Fairness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D63 D64 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-mic and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenec:40

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