What is reciprocal altruism in psychology?
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Cooperative investments; Cooperative returns; Reciprocal rewards; Reciprocity; Sanctions; Social partner choice Show
DefinitionReciprocal altruism describes a situation in which an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism’s fitness. Underlying this behavior is the assumption that there is an ultimate fitness benefit based on an expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time. It creates the obvious dilemma in which there is always a short-term benefit to cheating, which is why cooperating individuals must avoid being exploited by non-cooperating cheaters. Therefore, contingent cooperative investments that are based on the cooperative returns must be enforced through partner control and/or partner choice. IntroductionIt is relatively easy to explain altruism among relatives where kin selection causes genes to increase in frequency when the genetic relatedness of a recipient to a donor... Keywords
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Rights and permissionsReprints and Permissions Copyright information© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG About this entryCite this entryKrams, I. (2016). Reciprocal Altruism (Middle-Level Theory in Evolutionary Psychology). In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3598-1 What is an example of reciprocal altruism?An example of reciprocal altruism is cleaning symbiosis, such as between cleaner fish and their hosts, though cleaners include shrimps and birds, and clients include fish, turtles, octopuses and mammals.
What is altruism reciprocal altruism?While altruistic behavior is characterized as making sacrifices for others due to our care for their well-being, reciprocal altruism occurs when an individual acts altruistically in hopes of equal-value repayment in the future.
What is an example of altruism in psychology?Altruism refers to behavior that benefits another individual at a cost to oneself. For example, giving your lunch away is altruistic because it helps someone who is hungry, but at a cost of being hungry yourself.
What is reciprocal altruism and why is it important to evolutionary psychology?Reciprocal altruism is when altruistic behaviors are performed because they increase the likelihood of repayment in the future. For quite some time the presence of altruistic behaviors in animals and humans was a genuine puzzle for the Darwinian account of evolution through natural selection.
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