Pat Barclay explores questions such as, "Why are people altrustic?" and "Do nice guys finish last?" in this entertaining and engaging talk from the 2012 University of Toronto Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Mind (UTISM) conference organized by the Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence Students' Association (CASA).
Abstract
Many species regularly help non-relatives even when doing so is costly, and humans do so particularly often. What factors cause this generous behaviour to arise and be maintained despite the cost, and why do humans possess a psychology that triggers helping behavior? My work focuses on the personal benefits of helping others, and in particular on the power of reputation for promoting cooperative behaviour. Generous behaviour is one way of competing with others within a market for friends, allies, and associates. Because "generosity" is assessed relative to others, people may even engage in "competitive altruism" where they strive to be more generous than their competitors in this market. I will present empirical and game theoretical results to support these predictions. By viewing helping behaviour within the context of such biological markets, it allows us to generate novel hypotheses about helping behaviour and altruistic sentiment, including predicting individual and cultural differences in generosity, imbalances in reciprocity, and attacks on others' generous reputations.
For more information on the conference and see when the next one is, check out utism.cogsci.ca/
Pat Barclay's homepage is at www.uoguelph.ca...
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17 авг 2024
