Category Archives: Reciprocity

Just in case you missed it the first ten times: E.O. Wilson likes group selection, Jerry Coyne does not

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Chris Jensen

Why Evolution is True “E. O. Wilson mistakenly touts group selection (again) as a key factor in human evolution“

Posted in A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolution, Group Selection, Kin Selection, Reciprocity | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Understanding kin selection and reciprocity when strategies are culturally propagated

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Chris Jensen

arXiv “Self-Organization Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation with Cultural Propagation“

Posted in A Minor Post, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Kin Selection, Reciprocity | Leave a comment

Freeman Dyson wins the contest, and then says the contest is stupid

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Institute for Advanced Study “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” One of my favorite skateboarders when I was young was Natas Kaupas, an innovative skater who pioneered a lot of modern streetstyle. Natas was one of those skaters who could do things that … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Articles, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Modeling (General), Multilevel Selection, Reciprocity | Tagged | Leave a comment

NPR provides a quick overview of the human drive to reciprocate

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Chris Jensen

National Public Radio Shots “Give And Take: How The Rule Of Reciprocation Binds Us” I appreciate the far-ranging nature of this piece, and how it applies a basic understanding of reciprocity to larger social phenomena. There is not much here … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Behavior, Cooperation, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Emotion, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Reputation, Social Norms, Sociology | Leave a comment

Enforcing norms may be for personal gain, not to maintain social order (at least amongst Santa Barbara undergraduates)

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Chris Jensen

PLoS ONE “What Are Punishment and Reputation for?” Once again, a valuable and ingenious experiment over-reaches on the meaning of its finding, and the over-reach bleeds into the popular media. This is a really valuable experiment in that it asks … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Cooperation, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Psychological Adaptation, Punishment, Reciprocity, Reputation, Social Networks, Social Norms | 2 Comments

Despite great press for Dyson, the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is still not the solution to human cooperation

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The Chronicle of Higher Education “To the Trickster Go the Spoils” I really appreciate that Freeman Dyson acknowledges so clearly in this article that the fact that he has found a deceitful solution to the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma does not … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Altruism, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Fluidity of Knowledge, Game Theory, Reciprocity, Web | Leave a comment

Scientific American “Why We Help”

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The July issue of Scientific American features a cover story written by Martin A. Nowak called “Why We Help“. This very short article contains a brief review of Nowak’s “five rules” for cooperation, a little bit of connection to experimental work … Continue reading →

Posted in A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Behavior, Climate Change, Cooperation, Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Kin Selection, Punishment, Reciprocity, Social Networks | 1 Comment

PNAS paper explores the role of population structure in facilitating reciprocity

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The “Early Edition” of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America just posted online a paper entitled “Direct reciprocity in structured populations“. Authored by Matthijs van Veelen, Julián García, David G. Rand, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Behavior, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Information Design, Reciprocity, Social Networks | 3 Comments

Martin Nowak and Roger Highfield’s “SuperCooperators”

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Chris Jensen

Martin Nowak has accomplished a lot for a mid-career scientist. His theoretical work exploring how cooperation evolves has illuminated the importance of a great number of evolutionary mechanisms. He has also been unafraid to tackle real-life problems of cooperation, including … Continue reading →

Posted in Altruism, Books, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, History, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Kin Selection, Language Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Mutualism, Punishment, Reciprocity, Religion, Superorganisms, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Howard Rheingold TED talk urges a global movement to study cooperation

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Chris Jensen

A few weeks ago I posted an aside about Howard Rheingold’s 6-week online course on cooperation theory. One of my questions about the course regarded how to assess Rheingold’s credentials to teach the course: he is not sanctioned by any … Continue reading →

Posted in Altruism, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Game Theory, Group Selection, Mutualism, Punishment, Reciprocity, Talks & Seminars, Web | 1 Comment

Costly signalling not so costly in the presence of comrades

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Chris Jensen

This month’s issue of PLoS Computational Biology contained an interesting article entitled “Signalling and the Evolution of Cooperative Foraging in Dynamic Environments“. Authored by Colin J. Torney, Andrew Berdahl, Iain D. Couzin (all of Princeton University), the article seeks to … Continue reading →

Posted in Altruism, Articles, Cooperation, Game Theory, Group Selection, Individual-based Models, Modeling (General), Reciprocity, Spatially Explicit Modeling | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How the right wing co-opts research into the evolution of cooperation

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Chris Jensen

One of the ways that I keep up with my field these days (inasmuch as that is even possible given the pace of innovation and activity) is by using Google Alerts. For those of you who are not familiar with … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Political Science, Punishment, Reciprocity, Sociology, Web | 2 Comments

Is humanity’s most dangerous technology debt?

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Chris Jensen

If there is a theme running through my diverse interests, it is stability. For those who understand how ecological systems and evolutionary processes work, this should be entirely unsurprising: the living systems that persist today are those that are stable … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Ethics, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Reciprocity | Leave a comment

Martin Nowak lecture on The Evolution of Cooperation at MIT

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Chris Jensen

I just checked out a lecture given by Martin Nowak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was recently posted on the MIT videos site. The video was recently posted on the MIT site, but it is not entirely clear … Continue reading →

Posted in Altruism, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Kin Selection, Mathematics, Multilevel Selection, Psychological Adaptation, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Talks & Seminars, Web | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Easy-IPD version 1.0 released!

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Chris Jensen

After a full semester of development, including a round of in-classroom testing with real live Pratt undergraduates, I am proud to announce the release of the Easy Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (Easy-IPD) interface, a free web-based teaching tool that allows students … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Easy Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, Economics, Evolution Education, Game Theory, Political Science, Reciprocity, Sociology, Teaching Tools | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

“A Paradise Built in Hell” by Rebecca Solnit

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Chris Jensen

Rebecca Solnit’s 2009 book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster is a book about recent human history. But for those interested in human evolution, this history is essential reading. The primary idea of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Altruism, Books, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, History, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Mismatch Theory, Reciprocity | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Computer-Based Tools for Teaching about Robert Axelrod’s Prisoner’s Dilemma Tournaments

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Chris Jensen

In a recent posting I discussed the book The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod [1, 2]. The book chronicles Axelrod’s work in the 1980’s to understand the dynamics of the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD), which is perhaps the most … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Easy Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, Educational Software and Apps, Evolution Education, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Individual-based Models, Reciprocity, Spatially Explicit Modeling, System Stability, Teaching, Teaching Tools | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

“The Evolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Chris Jensen

I just finished reading Robert Axelrod’s seminal book entitled The Evolution of Cooperation. Although I had read a lot about Axelrod’s work and am quite familiar with the body of literature that it inspired, I had never actually read his … Continue reading →

Posted in Altruism, Behavioral Ecology, Books, Coevolution, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Human Evolution, Individual-based Models, Interdisciplinarity, Multilevel Selection, Mutualism, Political Science, Public Policy, Reciprocity, Sociology, Spatially Explicit Modeling | Tagged , , | Leave a comment