A friend in need is a friend indeed: Need-based sharing, rather than cooperative assortment, predicts experimental resource transfers among Agta hunter-gatherers
Smith, Daniel;
Dyble, Mark;
Major, Katie;
Page, Abigail E;
Chaudhary, Nikhil;
Salali, Gul Deniz;
Thompson, James;
Vinicius, Lucio;
Migliano, Andrea Bamberg;
Mace, Ruth;
(2018)
A friend in need is a friend indeed: Need-based sharing, rather than cooperative assortment, predicts experimental resource transfers among Agta hunter-gatherers.
Evolution and human behavior, 40 (1).
pp. 82-89.
ISSN 1090-5138
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.08.004
Permanent Identifier
Use this Digital Object Identifier when citing or linking to this resource.
Despite much theorizing, the evolutionary reasons why humans cooperate extensively with unrelated individuals are still largely unknown. While reciprocity explains many instances of non-kin cooperation, much remains to be understood. A recent suite of models based upon ‘cooperative assortativity’ suggest that non-kin cooperation can evolve if individuals preferentially assort with certain cooperative phenotypes, such as helping those who help others. Here, we test these assortative hypotheses among the Agta, a population of Filipino hunter-gatherers, using an experimental resource allocation game in which individuals divide resources between themselves and camp-mates. Individuals preferentially shared with less cooperative individuals, arguing against cooperative assortativity as a mechanism sustaining resource transfers in this population. Rather, sharing was often based on the recipient's level of need, in addition to kin-based transfers and reciprocal sharing. Contrary to several recent theoretical accounts, in this real-world setting we find no evidence for cooperative assortativity influencing patterns of cooperation. These results may reflect the demands of living in a foraging ecology characterized by high resource stochasticity, necessitating need-based sharing as a system of long-term reciprocity to mitigate repeated subsistence shortfalls.