Synonyms
Definition
According to Hamilton (1964), altruism entails suffering a cost to confer a benefit. Trivers (1971) defines reciprocal altruism as an exchange of altruistic behaviors between individuals so as to produce a net benefit to both individuals. Traits that enhance reciprocal altruism, including punishment of nonreciprocators, have been defined as reciprocal altruism adaptations.
Introduction
There is a long-standing misconception that evolution is based on a fierce competition and therefore rewards only selfish behavior. On the contrary, cooperation can be observed across life, including among genes, cells, individual organisms, and groups of organisms, including diverse human societies ranging from hunter-gatherer tribes to nation states.
In his seminal work Inclusive Fitness, Hamilton (1964) describes the evolution of altruism among genetically related individuals. Trivers (1971) suggests that reciprocal cooperation...
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Zhu, Y., Huang, S., Zhuang, JY. (2020). Adaptations for Reciprocal Altruism. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1202-1
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