survival of the nicest how altruism made us human and why survival of the nicest how altruism made us human and why survival of the nicest: how altruism made us human and why survival of the nicest how altruism made us human and why survival of the nicest how altruism made us human and why [pub.97] download survival of the nicest: how altruism survival of the nicest how altruism made us human a...

What is altruism? Altruism is a type of social behaviour. From an evolutionary point of view, a behaviour is social if it has consequences for both the actor and another individual — the recipient. Social behaviours can be categorized according to whether their consequences for the actor and recipient are beneficial, increasing fitness, or costly, decreasing fitness (Figure 1). Altruism is when...

Altruism has long been taken to be the guiding principle of ethical organ donation in the UK, and has been used as justification for rejecting or allowing certain types of donation. We argue that, despite this prominent role, altruism has been poorly defined in policy and position documents, and used confusingly and inconsistently. Looking at how the term has been used over recent years allows ...

Can a generation’s discounting of future generations’ consumption utilities be interpreted as “pure” altruism towards future generations, that is, a concern that these are better off according to their likewise forward-looking preferences? It turns out that the answer is positive for many but not all discount functions used in the economics literature. In particular, traditional exponential dis...

Behavioral economists have come to recognize that reciprocity, the interaction of trust and trustworthiness, is a distinct and economically relevant component of individual preferences alongside selfishness and altruism. This recognition is principally due to observed decisions in laboratory “trust games”. However, recent research suggests that altruism may explain much of what “looks like” tru...

The purpose of this study is to examine altruistic behavior (altruism) and egotistic behavior (reciprocity and reputation) regarding online group repurchasing intention. Data collected from 282 online group shoppers in an online shopping store provided support for the proposed model. The findings of the study shows that altruism is relevant to online group buying, and trust and satisfaction hav...

William D. Hamilton postulated the existence of 'genes underlying altruism', under the rubric of inclusive fitness theory, a half-century ago. Such genes are now poised for discovery. In this article, we develop a set of intuitive criteria for the recognition and analysis of genes for altruism and describe the first candidate genes affecting altruism from social insects and humans. We also prov...

Altruistic actions are generally seen as 'noble'. Yet some 'lowly' organisms are apt to match the most heroic human acts of devotion and self-sacrifice. To use a widely-quoted example, consider Dicrocoelium dendriticum, also known as brainworm. These parasites spend some of their stages in the innards of cows, exit in the feces and, in the form of cercaria, are eaten by ants a few stages later....

We study the evolution of altruism in one- and two-dimensional stepping-stone populations with discrete overlapping generations. We find that increasing survival probability facilitates the evolution of altruism, in agreement with recent results for a patch-structured population. We allow the altruistic behaviour to affect either fecundity or survival probability. In the first case, altruism is...