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What motives underlie the ways humans interact socially? Are these
the same for all societies? Are these part of our nature, or
influenced by our environments? Over the last decade, research in
experimental economics has emphatically falsified the textbook
representation of Homo economicus. Hundreds of experiments suggest
that people care not only about their own material payoffs, but
also about such things as fairness, equity, and reciprocity.
However, this research left fundamental questions unanswered: Are
such social preferences stable components of human nature, or are
they modulated by economic, social, and cultural environments?
Until now, experimental research could not address this question
because virtually all subjects had been university students.
Combining ethnographic and experimental approaches to fill this
gap, this book breaks new ground in reporting the results of a
large cross-cultural study aimed at determining the sources of
social (non-selfish) preferences that underlie the diversity of
human sociality. In this study, the same experiments carried out
with university students were performed in fifteen small-scale
societies exhibiting a wide variety of social, economic, and
cultural conditions. The results show that the variation in
behaviour is far greater than previously thought, and that the
differences between societies in market integration and the
importance of cooperation explain a substantial portion of this
variation, which individual-level economic and demographic
variables could not. The results also trace the extent to which
experimental play mirrors patterns of interaction found in everyday
life. The book includes a succinct but substantive introduction to
the use of game theory as an analytical tool, and to its use in the
social sciences for the rigorous testing of hypotheses about
fundamental aspects of social behaviour outside artificially
constructed laboratories. The editors also summarize the results of
the fifteen case studies in a suggestive chapter about the scope of
the project.
What motives underlie the ways humans interact socially? Are these
the same for all societies? Are these part of our nature, or
influenced by our environments? Over the last decade, research in
experimental economics has emphatically falsified the textbook
representation of Homo economicus. Literally hundreds of
experiments suggest that people care not only about their own
material payoffs, but also about such things as fairness, equity
and reciprocity. However, this research left fundamental questions
unanswered: Are such social preferences stable components of human
nature; or, are they modulated by economic, social and cultural
environments? Until now, experimental research could not address
this question because virtually all subjects had been university
students, and while there are cultural differences among student
populations throughout the world, these differences are small
compared to the full range of human social and cultural
environments. A vast amount of ethnographic and historical research
suggests that people's motives are influenced by economic, social,
and cultural environments, yet such methods can only yield
circumstantial evidence about human motives. Combining ethnographic
and experimental approaches to fill this gap, this book breaks new
ground in reporting the results of a large cross-cultural study
aimed at determining the sources of social (non-selfish)
preferences that underlie the diversity of human sociality. The
same experiments which provided evidence for social preferences
among university students were performed in fifteen small-scale
societies exhibiting a wide variety of social, economic and
cultural conditions by experienced field researchers who had also
done long-term ethnographic field work in these societies. The
findings of these experiments demonstrated that no society in which
experimental behaviour is consistent with the canonical model of
self-interest. Indeed, results showed that the variation in
behaviour is far greater than previously thought, and that the
differences between societies in market integration and the
importance of cooperation explain a substantial portion of this
variation, which individual-level economic and demographic
variables could not. Finally, the extent to which experimental play
mirrors patterns of interaction found in everyday life is traced.
The book starts with a succinct but substantive introduction to the
use of game theory as an analytical tool and its use in the social
sciences for the rigorous testing of hypotheses about fundamental
aspects of social behaviour outside artificially constructed
laboratories. The results of the fifteen case studies are
summarized in a suggestive chapter about the scope of the project.
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