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Enlarge Shadow of Future

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science
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Commitment; Reciprocity

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“Enlarge the shadow of future” is one of the recommendations given by Robert Axelrod (1984) to help promote cooperation in social dilemmas, based on evolutionary models.

Introduction

Based on evolutionary models of cooperation and computer simulations, Axelrod (1984) proposed three mechanisms to promote cooperation between selfish individuals: (a) make future outcomes more important than the present ones, (b) change payoffs of possible outcomes in an interaction, and (c) teach people to care about others. This entry concerns the first of these mechanisms, which refers to the increase of the likelihood of future interaction with others and is called “the shadow of the future” by Axelrod and others (Axelrod 1984; Axelrod and Dion 1988; Bó 2005; Oates et al. 2010b; Sebastián-Enesco and Warneken 2015).

Evolutionary Models of Cooperation

Cooperation, or altruism, has long been considered an evolutionary puzzle (Nowak 2006). If one assumes that...

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Correspondence to Natalia Dutra .

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Dutra, N. (2019). Enlarge Shadow of Future. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3500-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3500-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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