文章基本信息

标题：Indirect reciprocity is sensitive to costs of information transfer
本地全文：下载
作者：Shinsuke Suzuki ; Hiromichi Kimura
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2013
卷号：3
DOI：10.1038/srep01435
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：How natural selection can promote cooperative or altruistic behavior is a fundamental question in biological and social sciences. One of the persuasive mechanisms is "indirect reciprocity," working through reputation: cooperative behavior can prevail because the behavior builds the donor's good reputation and then s/he receives some reciprocal benefits from someone else in the community. However, an important piece missed in the previous studies is that the reputation-building process requires substantial cognitive abilities such as communication skills, potentially causing a loss of biological fitness. Here, by mathematical analyses and individual-based computer simulations, we show that natural selection never favors indirect reciprocal cooperation in the presence of the cost of reputation building, regardless of the cost-to-benefit ratio of cooperation or moral assessment rules (social norms). Our results highlight the importance of considering the cost of high-level cognitive abilities in studies of the evolution of humans' and animals' social behavior.