In medio stat virtus: Theoretical and methodological extremes regarding reciprocity will not explain complex social behaviors

Claudia Civai, Alan Langus
2012 Behavioral and Brain Sciences  
AbstractGuala contests the validity of strong reciprocity as a key element in shaping social behavior by contrasting evidence from experimental games to that of natural and historic data. He suggests that in order to understand the evolution of social behavior researchers should focus on natural data and weak reciprocity. We disagree with Guala's proposal to shift the focus of the study from one extreme of the spectrum (strong reciprocity) to the other extreme (weak reciprocity). We argue that
more » ... he study of the evolution of social behavior must be comparative in nature, and we point out experimental evidence that shows that social behavior is not cooperation determined by a set of fixed factors. We argue for a model that sees social behavior as a dynamic interaction of genetic and environmental factors.
doi:10.1017/s0140525x11001208 pmid:22289311 fatcat:5lxhae7xffdtvgp35aprmq6mym