A cue of kinship promotes cooperation for the public good

Relatedness is a cornerstone of the evolution of social behavior. In the human lineage, the existence of cooperative kin networks was likely a critical stepping stone in the evolution of modern social complexity. Here we report the results of the first experimental manipulation of a putative cue of human kinship (facial self-resemblance) among ostensible players in a variant of the “tragedy of the commons,” the one-shot public goods game, in which group-level cooperation—via contributions made to the public good and the punishment of free riders—is supported at a personal cost. In accordance with theoretical predictions, contributions increased as a function of the “kin density” of the group. Moreover, the distribution of punishment was not contingent on kin density level. Our findings indicate that the presence of a subtle cue of genealogical relatedness facilitates group cooperation, supporting the hypothesis that the mechanisms fostering contemporary sociality took root in extended family networks.

[1]  D. Barash.  The Biology of Moral Systems, Richard D. Alexander. Aldine, Hawthorne, New York (1987), xx, +301. Price $34.95 hardback, $16.95 paperback , 1987 .

[2]  L. DeBruine,et al.  Trustworthy but not lust-worthy: context-specific effects of facial resemblance , 2005, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[3]  T. Yamagishi,et al.  Social exchange and reciprocity: confusion or a heuristic? , 2000, Evolution and human behavior : official journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

[4]  L. Partridge,et al.  Oxford Surveys in Evolutionary Biology , 1991 .

[5]  P. Oliver.  Rewards and Punishments as Selective Incentives for Collective Action: Theoretical Investigations , 1980, American Journal of Sociology.

[6]  S. Frank.  Foundations of Social Evolution , 2019 .

[7]  E. Fehr,et al.  Altruistic punishment in humans , 2002, Nature.

[8]  Andy Gardner,et al.  Cooperation and Punishment, Especially in Humans , 2004, The American Naturalist.

[9]  N. Stanietsky,et al.  The interaction of TIGIT with PVR and PVRL2 inhibits human NK cell cytotoxicity , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[10]  M. Milinski,et al.  Reputation helps solve the ‘tragedy of the commons’ , 2002, Nature.

[11]  A. Griffin,et al.  Social semantics : altruism , cooperation , mutualism , strong reciprocity and group selection , 2007 .

[12]  Alan Grafen,et al.  A geometric view of relatedness , 1985 .

[13]  G. W. Snedecor.  Statistical Methods , 1964 .

[14]  R. Kurzban,et al.  Audience effects on moralistic punishment , 2007 .

[15]  Doug Jones,et al.  The universal psychology of kinship: evidence from language , 2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[16]  L. Cosmides,et al.  The architecture of human kin detection , 2007, Nature.

[17]  L. Keller,et al.  The evolution of cooperation and altruism – a general framework and a classification of models , 2006, Journal of evolutionary biology.

[18]  Colin Camerer,et al.  “Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies , 2005, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[19]  Laurence T Maloney,et al.  Kin recognition and the perceived facial similarity of children. , 2006, Journal of vision.

[20]  A. Griffin,et al.  Cooperation and competition in pathogenic bacteria , 2004, Nature.

[21]  D. C. Howell.  Statistical Methods for Psychology , 1987 .

[22]  R. Boyd,et al.  The evolution of altruistic punishment , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[23]  W. Hamilton.  The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I. , 1964, Journal of theoretical biology.

[24]  Bernard Tiddeman,et al.  Prototyping and Transforming Facial Textures for Perception Research , 2001, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[25]  N. Chagnon,et al.  Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population , 1988, Science.

[26]  T. Yamagishi.  The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good , 1986 .

[27]  S. Bowles,et al.  Genetic relatedness predicts South African migrant workers' remittances to their families , 2005, Nature.

[28]  L. DeBruine,et al.  Facial resemblance increases the attractiveness of same–sex faces more than other–sex faces , 2004, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[29]  P. Richerson,et al.  Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups , 1992 .

[30]  W. Hamilton.  Innate social aptitudes of man: an approach from evolutionary genetics , 1975 .

[31]  R. Lewontin.  ‘The Selfish Gene’ , 1977, Nature.

[32]  R. Hames.  Garden labor exchange among the Ye'kwana , 1987 .

[33]  Pat Barclay,et al.  Reputational benefits for altruistic punishment , 2006 .

[34]  G. Hardin,et al.  The Tragedy of the Commons , 1968, Green Planet Blues.

[35]  S. West,et al.  Cooperation, virulence and siderophore production in bacterial parasites , 2003, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[36]  Ralph R. Miller,et al.  Altruistic punishing and helping differ in sensitivity to relatedness, friendship, and future interactions , 2005 .

[37]  A. Griffin,et al.  Kin Discrimination and the Benefit of Helping in Cooperatively Breeding Vertebrates , 2003, Science.

[38]  W. Hamilton.  The genetical evolution of social behaviour. II. , 1964, Journal of theoretical biology.

[39]  K. Foster,et al.  Diminishing returns in social evolution: the not‐so‐tragic commons , 2004, Journal of evolutionary biology.

[40]  Peter Hammerstein,et al.  Game theory and human evolution: a critique of some recent interpretations of experimental games. , 2006, Theoretical population biology.

[41]  Donald E. Brown.  HUMAN UNIVERSALS , 2008, Science.

[42]  D. Fessler,et al.  Nobody's watching? Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. , 2005 .

[43]  L. DeBruine.  Facial resemblance enhances trust , 2002, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[44]  R. Trivers.  The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism , 1971, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[45]  A. Grafen.  Natural selection, kin selection and group selection [Polistes fuscatus, wasps] , 1984 .

[46]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  The nature of human altruism , 2003, Nature.

[47]  K. Anderson.  Relatedness and investment in children in South Africa , 2005, Human nature.

[48]  S. Bowles.  Group Competition, Reproductive Leveling, and the Evolution of Human Altruism , 2006, Science.

[49]  Ernst Fehr,et al.  Third Party Punishment and Social Norms , 2004 .