From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 14 Feb 2003 - 13:09:05 GMT
Interesting piece.
Isn't this a variant of tit for tat?
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Keith Henson
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 3:06 AM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Altruistic Anger
>
> http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/punishment020109.html
>
> This is related to human motivation, and motivation is important to which
> memes get distributed or opposed. More about enforcing social behavior.
>
> Keith
>
> Anger and Punishment
> Scientists Explain How Getting
> Mad Can Lead to Good Will
>
> By Amanda Onion
>
> Jan. 9 — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you … and if they
> don't do the same, punish them.
>
> New findings suggest it may be time to expand the usual interpretations of
>
> altruism. Rather than including just acts of generosity and goodness, the
> term should also incorporate the concept of altruistic punishment, studies
>
> show.
>
> "The definition of altruism in biology doesn't have anything to do with
> intentions," explained Samuel Bowles, an economist at the Santa Fe
> Institute. "It has to do with bearing a burden that is costly to oneself,
> but that benefits others."
>
> Not only can punishment be altruistic, the new study demonstrates it's
> also
> critical for maintaining a healthy society.
>
> "Most people think when you punish someone, you do it for your own
> benefit," said David Sloan Wilson, a psychobiologist at the State
> University of New York in Binghamton and author of the book Unto Others.
> "But if the punishment helps the public, it's not selfish, but selfless."
>
> Punishment Game
>
> To prove that people are willing to undergo personal cost to punish
> others,
> Ernst Fehr of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of
> Zurich
> and colleagues devised a financial game in which students were given 20
> monetary units (about $23.95) and then told to either contribute their
> resources to a communal pot, or keep the money at a cost to the group.
>
> The more people gave to the communal pot, the more each member of the
> group
> reaped once the game was done. But if people refused to donate, the group
> earned much less.
>
> Then Fehr added a twist. Players were given the option of punishing those
> who refused to donate to the pot. Each time a player issued a punishment
> against another, the punished player was deprived of three monetary units
> and the punisher was deprived of one.
>
> Even though the punisher never played with the same people twice — and so
> could not hope to benefit later — more than 80 percent of the students
> opted to sacrifice one of their own units to punish stingy players.
>
> The punishment worked: Those punished contributed more money in later
> games. And the series of games that included the option to punish ended up
>
> earning group members much more money than those who had no punishment
> option.
>
> Altruistic Punishment at Work, in War
>
> Evidence of altruistic punishment is also pervasive in the real world,
> says
> Fehr, including among work groups.
>
> "Free-riders who pretend to be ill although they could in fact work are
> typically informally sanctioned by the other members of the work team,"
> said Fehr, who published the results of his study in this week's issue of
> the journal Nature.
>
> The current war against terrorism can also be explained, at least partly,
> by altruistic punishment.
>
> Dustin Hammond of Park Forest, Ill., for example, recently decided to meet
>
> with Air Force recruiters in the months following the Sept. 11 attacks.
> Even though the chances are slim that terrorists might attack his small
> hometown or that of his family members, Hammond was driven to risk his
> life
> to take part in the military efforts against terrorism.
>
> "I'd like to serve my country. That tragedy really aggravated me," he told
>
> the Chicago Tribune.
>
> Most might find it easy to understand Hammond's motivations. But it's the
> kind of behavior that has flummoxed biologists for decades.
>
> "It's always been a puzzle," said Wilson. "Why would a person decrease
> their own fitness for the fitness of others?"
>
> Selfless Anger
>
> Some theories have suggested there can be selfish motivations for
> altruistic acts. Sacrificing for family, for example, can still advance an
>
> altruist's genes since family members share gene lines. Another theory,
> known as reciprocal altruism or "tit for tat," suggests that people help
> others because they expect to receive help in return.
>
> Neither of those explanations can explain why players elected to punish
> others in the Fehr experiment.
>
> Instead, the Fehr study and others show that the presence of altruists in
> a
> group increases the overall fitness of the group — no matter the
> consequence to the individual — so altruistic acts can make evolutionary
> sense.
>
> And, unlike most altruism, altruistic punishment is inspired less by good
> will than by a factor that biologists have so far rarely considered:
> anger.
>
> "Not everyone is public-spirited — you might or might not be motivated to
> help a group," said Wilson. "But when you see a cheater, you get mad. And
> anger is what recruits this separate group of altruistic punishers."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri 14 Feb 2003 - 13:52:33 GMT