Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2009
Introduction
The marked complexity of primate social behaviour is usually ascribed to the extraordinary intelligence of primates (Whiten and Byrne, 1986, 1997; Byrne and Whiten, 1988). Of the ‘social tools’ adopted by primates various forms of ‘bargaining’ or exchange relationship (such as the interchange of grooming for received support as supposed for chimpanzees) have drawn much attention in both cognitive and evolutionary studies. Exchange relationships are often assumed to account for the occurrence of sociopositive acts, because these acts, such as grooming, food-sharing and support in fights by primates, seem to lower the fitness of the actor and to enhance that of the receiver. The theories that are commonly applied to explain such acts are based on the assumption that the tendency to display non-selfish behaviour (so-called ‘altruism’) is genetically encoded. For each aspect, on the basis of cost–benefit arguments, separate adaptive explanations are given and separate acts are supposed to contribute independently to the fitness of an individual (so that the complete fitness of an individual equals the sum of the contributions of the separate traits). The three main theories are:
The kin selection theory (Hamilton, 1964). Altruism may be spreading evolutionarily if it is directed towards kin, because of the high probability that closely related individuals share the gene responsible for its realisation.
The theory of reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971). Altruism can be part of a cooperative relationship, if it is returned by the receiver to the actor. Although the altruist suffers a loss in the short term, by being ‘paid back’ later, he will benefit in the long run.
[…]
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.