McElreath,R.
Clutton-Brock,T.H.
Fehr,E.
Ressler,D.M.
Hagen,E.H.
Hammerstein,P.
[et-al].

(Created by APA) In this chapter, we summarize our discussions of mechanisms that support altruism outside of kin selection. We felt it was important to focus our discussion on mechanisms. One of the strengths of Darwin's account of adaptations is that it not only explains why animals are often well-adapted to their environments, but also why they are often poorly adapted. If all Darwinism did was to predict that animals should be well-adapted, its predictions would be indistinguishable from Creationism. Instead, the theory of natural selection provides a mechanism by which adaptations as well as maladaptations are constructed. It is in this way that attention to mechanisms in the study of cooperation is scientifically productive. A model of cooperation that focuses only on outcome cannot easily predict when cooperation does not emerge. Simultaneously, without attention to errors in the functioning of cognitive machinery or flaws in specific algorithms, we may not be able to understand the design of the machinery we do find. Although the distinction between mechanism (proximate explanation) and function (ultimate explanation) is useful, it obscures the modem understanding that mechanisms have strong impacts on function. This report is organized as follows. First, we discuss evidence for reciprocal altruism in animal societies, as well as specific mechanisms for the bookkeeping of past interactions. Next, we explore the role of reputation and strong reciprocity in dyadic cooperation. After these two sections on dyads, we discuss the role of reciprocal altruism, strong reciprocity, and reputation for cooperation in sizable groups of individuals, not just pairs. Finally, emotions may as well implement strategies in both dyadic and large-scale cooperation, and the nature of emotion mechanisms may powerfully affect our behavioral predictions in any of these contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

McElreath, R, Clutton-Brock, T. H., Fehr, E., Ressler, D.M.T., Hagen, E.H., Hammerstein, P., [et-al] (2003). Group report: The role of cognition and emotion in cooperation. In P. Hammerstein (Ed.), The genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation (pp. 125-152). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Publication year	2003
Document type:	In book
Publication status:	Published
External URL:
Categories:
Keywords:	altruismcognitionscooperationemotionshumannatural selectionreciprocitytheory of evolutioncognitionemotionreciprocal altruism