Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Reciprocal Altruism (Middle-Level Theory in Evolutionary Psychology)

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Book cover Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Arnocky, S., Piché, T., Albert, G., Ouellette, D., & Barclay, P. (2016). Altruism predicts mating success in humans. British Journal of Psychology. doi:10.1111/bjop.12208.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (1997). Social psychology (2nd ed.). Boston: Addison-Ewsley Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aumann, R. J. (1959). Acceptable points in general cooperative n-person games. In A. W. Tucker & R. D. Luce (Eds.), Contributions to the theory of games IV, annals of mathematics study 40 (pp. 287–324). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Axelrod, R., & Hamilton, W. D. (1981). The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211, 1390–1396.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Barraza, J. A., & Zak, P. J. (2009). Empathy toward strangers triggers oxytocin release and subsequent generosity. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167, 182–189.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Barta, Z., McNamara, J. M., Huszar, D. B., & Taborsky, M. (2011). Cooperation among non-relatives evolves by state-dependent generalized reciprocity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 278, 843–848.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bartal, I. B.-A., Decety, J., & Mason, P. (2011). Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats. Science, 334, 1427–1430.

    Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Batson, C. D., & Shaw, L. L. (1991). Evidence for altruism: Toward a pluralism of prosocial motives. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 107–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bshary, R., & Gutter, A. S. (2006). Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fish mutualism. Nature, 441, 975–978.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, G. G. (2014). The reciprocity controversy. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 1, 368–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, G. G., & Wilkinson, G. S. (2013). Food sharing in vampire bats, reciprocal help predicts donations more than relatedness or harassment. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280, 20122573.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, G. G., & Wilkinson, G. S. (2016). Common vampire bat contact calls attract past food-sharing partners. Animal Behaviour, 116, 45–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clay, Z., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2013). Development of socio-emotional competence in bonobos. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 18121–18126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connor, R. C. (2010). Cooperation beyond the dyad: on simple models and a complex society. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365, 2687–2697.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Waal, F. B. M. (2008). Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 279–300.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • De Waal, F. (2010). The age of empathy, nature’s lessons for a kinder society. London: Souvenir Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dölen, G., Darvishzadeh, A., Huang, K. W., & Malenka, R. C. (2013). Social reward requires coordinated activity of accumbens oxytocin and 5HT. Nature, 501, 179–184.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Fishman, M. A. (2003). Indirect reciprocity among imperfect individuals. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 225, 285–292.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fishman, M. A. (2006). Involuntary defection and the evolutionary origins of empathy. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 242, 873–879.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gilovich, T., Keltner, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (2006). Social psychology. New York: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7(1–16), 17–32.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hauser, M. D., Chen, M. K., Chen, F., & Chuang, E. (2003). Give unto others: Genetically unrelated cotton-top tamarin monkeys preferentially give food to those who altruistically give food back. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 270, 2363–2370.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Hecht, E. E., Patterson, R., & Barbey, A. K. (2012). What can other animals tell us about human social cognition? An evolutionary perspective on reflective and reflexive processing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 224.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jordan, J. J., Hoffman, M., Nowak, M. A., & Rand, D. G. (2016). Uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 8658–8663.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Komorita, S., Sheposh, J., & Braver, S. (1968). Power, the use of power, and cooperative choice I a two-person game. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 134–142.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kraines, D., & Kraines, V. (1989). Pavlov and the prisoner’s dilemma. Theory and Decision, 26, 47–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krama, T., Vrublevska, J., Freeberg, T. M., Kullberg, C., Rantala, M. J., & Krams, I. (2012). You mob my owl, i’ll mob yours: Birds play tit-for-tat game. Scientific Reports, 2, 800. doi:10.1038/srep00800.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Krams, I., Krama, T., Igaune, K., & Mänd, R. (2008). Experimental evidence of reciprocal altruism in the pied flycatcher. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology, 62, 599–605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krams, I., Kokko, H., Vrublevska, J., Abolins-Abols, M., Krama, T., & Rantala, M. J. (2013). The excuse principle can maintain cooperation through forgivable defection in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280, 20131475.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Langford, D. J., Crager, S. E., Shehzad, Z., Smith, S. B., Sotocinal, S. G., Levenstadt, J. S., Chanda, M. L., Levitin, D. L., & Mogil, J. S. (2006). Social modulation of pain as evidence for empathy in mice. Science, 312, 1967–1970.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, P. C. (1987). Sibships: Cooperation and competition among immature vervet monkeys. Primates, 28, 47–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leimar, O., & Hammerstein, P. (2001). Evolution of cooperation through indirect reciprocity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 268, 745–753.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Maynard Smith, J. (1982). Evolution and the theory of games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2012). Is self-sacrificial competitive altruism primarily a male activity? Evolutionary Psychology, 10, 50–65.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Milinski, M. (1987). TIT FOR TAT in sticklebacks and the evolution of cooperation. Nature, 325, 433–435.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Milinski, M., Semmann, D., & Krambeck, H. J. (2002). Reputation helps solve the ‘tragedy of commons’. Nature, 415, 424–426.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Noë, R., & Hammerstein, P. (1994). Biological markets: Supply and demand determine the effect of partner choice in cooperation, mutualism and mating. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 35, 1–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M. A. (2006). Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science, 314, 1560–1563.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M. A., & May, R. M. (1992). Evolutionary games and spatial chaos. Nature, 359, 826–829.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M. A., & Roch, S. (2007). Upstream reciprocity and the evolution of gratitude. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 274, 605–610.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (1998). Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring. Nature, 393, 573–577.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (2005). Evolution of indirect reciprocity. Nature, 437, 1291–1298.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ohtsuki, H., Hauert, C., Lieberman, E., & Nowak, M. A. (2006). A simple rule for the evolution of cooperation on graphs and social networks. Nature, 441, 502–505.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Olendorf, R., Getty, T., & Scribner, K. (2004). Cooperative nest defence in red-winged blackbirds: Reciprocal altruism, kinship or by-product mutualism? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 271, 177–182.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Palagi, E., Dall’Olio, S., Demuru, E., & Stanyon, R. (2014). Exploring the evolutionary foundations of empathy: Consolation in monkeys. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 341–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Panchanathan, K., & Boyd, R. (2003). A tale of two defectors: The importance of standing for evolution of indirect reciprocity. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 224, 115–126.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Panksepp, J., & Panksepp, J. B. (2013). Toward a cross-species understanding of empathy. Trends in Neurosciences, 36, 489–496.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rand, D. G., Greene, J. D., & Nowak, M. A. (2012). Spontaneous giving and calculated greed. Nature, 489, 427–430.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rankin, D. J., & Taborsky, M. (2009). Assortment and the evolution of generalized reciprocity. Evolution, 63, 1913–1922.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rapoport, A., & Chammah, A. M. (1965). Prisoner’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Russell, A. F., & Wright, J. (2008). Avian mobbing: byproduct mutualism not reciprocal altruism. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24, 3–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rutte, C., & Taborsky, M. (2007). Generalized reciprocity in rats. PLoS Biology, 5(7), e196. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050196.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (1984). Grooming, alliances and reciprocal altruism in vervet monkeys. Nature, 308, 541–543.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, C. (1996). Modelling reciprocal altruism. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 47, 533–551.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sugden, R. (1986). The economics of cooperation, rights and welfare. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taborsky, M. (2013). Social evolution: Reciprocity there is. Current Biology, 23, R486–R488.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, G. S. (1984). Reciprocal food sharing in the vampire bat. Nature, 308, 181–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Indrikis Krams

Authors
  1. Indrikis Krams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Indrikis Krams .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Redlands, Redlands, CA, USA

    Catherine Salmon

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Krams, I. (2016). Reciprocal Altruism (Middle-Level Theory in Evolutionary Psychology). In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3598-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3598-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation