Competitive Altruism In Competition

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To address the limitation of RA, competitive altruism was introduced to explain for altruistic behaviors with one-time interaction. Competitive altruism occurs when there is a competition of generosity among individuals (Hardy & Van Vugt, 2006). Under competitive altruism, there are several overlapping theories explaining the underlying mechanism, such as cost signaling theory and indirect reciprocity. Both theories are relatively similar because they proposed how competition might arise due to reputation building. According to the cost signaling theory, individuals perform costly behaviors to reveal truthful information about them eg. social status (McAndrew, 2002). By doing so, it increases the likelihood of them being chosen as mate…show more content…
These experiments concluded that, while the most altruistic individuals received the least in the games, they gained higher status. Also, people were more altruistic in public than in private settings. Therefore, these findings suggest that being altruistic could be a way for individuals to build up their reputation. Additionally, certain altruistic acts may be costly in short run, but the long-term benefits give altruistic individuals an advantage over non-altruistic…show more content…
One real life example can be illustrated in victims of crime (Gintis, 2000). These victims contributed time and effort so that the lawbreakers could be arrested and punished. Gintis (2000) has attempted to understand how strong reciprocity might have evolved through mathematical theory. He concluded that during life-threatening events such as natural disasters, groups with strong reciprocators are more likely to cooperate than groups with no strong reciprocators because strong reciprocators would ensure cooperation within the group. Hence, these groups are more likely survive and propagate their genes. This explanation is similar to the multilevel selection theory proposed by David Sloan Wilson (McAndrew, 2002). However, these evolutionary models are built on the assumption that groups are not isolated and there are constant competitions between these groups. This assumption is hard to validate in most studies and hence, these evolutionary models remain

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