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This chapter examines the sociobiology of human cooperation. Given the tendency of people to copy the successful and the fact that natural selection favors the more fit, the chapter asks how our altruistic preferences overcame the cultural and biological evolutionary handicaps entailed by the reduced payoffs that they elicited. To answer this question, two major biological explanations of cooperation are discussed: inclusive fitness in either a kin-based or a multi-level selection model, and reciprocal altruism and its indirect reciprocity and costly signaling variants. The chapter explores a model of inclusive fitness based on group differentiation and competition, clarifying what is meant by multi-level selection and how it works. It also discusses models that address equilibrium selection, the link between standing strategy and indirect reciprocity, and positive assortment. Finally, it assesses the mechanisms and motives underlying helping behavior.

To distinguish narratives from other representational vehicles we need to say something about what distinguishes the contents of narratives from the contents of other things: theories, lists, annals, rambling conversational remarks, instruction manuals. The book does not seek to define narrative, choosing instead to focus on the graded notion of narrativity. We can then think of things high in narrativity as combining certain features which make for the detailed representation of particulars, especially agents, in their causal and temporal relations. While it needs careful handling, this idea is defensible against recent criticism due to Velleman. An appendix to the chapter speculates on the evolutionary background which makes representations of just these kinds so very important to us as indices of reliability.

The basic premise of game theory is that social life is like a giant game. If this is true, it is also true that life is less like chess and more like poker. In games like chess, information is entirely public. In games like poker, however, there is private information, and access to this information strongly determines the outcomes of contests. Communication is at least as important to animals as it is to card players. There are many kinds of communication. Information can be shared intentionally or accidentally, be inherently unfakeable or strategic. This chapter examines animal communication and animal signals, focusing on repeat play and cheap signaling, altruism, and social learning. First, it presents models in which intentional communication, signals, can affect the outcomes of a game. Second, it considers examples of models in which costly signaling theory is put to the test. Third, it looks at the Sir Philip Sidney game to see how costly signaling theory works. Finally, it considers two-locus genetic models and how to model the evolutionary dynamics of information within a population.

Charitable behaviour is puzzling from an evolutionary perspective: why does such behaviour exist despite its costs, and what causes it to evolve and persist? Answering such questions helps us to promote helping and charitable behaviours. In this chapter, I examine various selective pressures that select for cooperative sentiment and how these might be harnessed to promote helping. In particular, I focus on reputation-based theories (indirect reciprocity, punishment, costly signaling) because these are more novel and important for the generalized helping seen in many humans. I discuss how reputation promotes helping, how to take advantage of its effects, the linkage of cooperative acts with reputational pressures, as well as several important limitations that must be addressed before the science of reputation is mature enough to maximize its effectiveness.

This chapter explores how biologically oriented approaches to narratives relate to more traditional hermeneutic and culturalist readings. As a case study, two ethnological readings of reciprocal exchange in Beowulf are examined from the perspective of altruism theory and costly signaling theory. It is shown how the latter crucially add to hermeneutic understandings of such aspects of the plot as wyrð (“worth”) as an aspect of personal identity and sibbengedriht as a social phenomenon. The relevance of this type of analysis for the wider debate on the disciplinary identity of ethnology is discussed in terms of Tinbergen's “four whys.”

It has often been suggested that the foundation for much human cooperation is the widespread food sharing observed among hunter–gatherers. To investigate this proposition, the study reported here enlisted one of the few remaining societies of active nomadic hunter–gatherers – the Hadza of Tanzania (who are one of the most egalitarian societies in the ethnographic literature) – to play two related games: the Ultimatum Game and the Dictator Game. The characteristics of the study population are first described, and then the methods used to conduct the games are outlined and the results presented and analysed in terms of six variables (age, gender, comprehension, numbers of siblings and children, and camp population/size). The Hadza made lower offers in both games than are typical of complex societies, and the offers were lower in small camps than larger ones; these findings contrast with the strong Hadza sharing ethic. Possible interpretations are discussed; these include a combination of greater fear of punishment (for not sharing) in larger camps and a greater desire to escape from constant sharing in small camps, and three other explanations that have been proposed by evolutionary anthropologists for widespread food sharing – tolerated scrounging, delayed reciprocity, and costly signalling.

The basic idea underlying the evolution of altruism through sexual selection is that altruistic traits that are a burden to survival can evolve if they increase animals’ reproductive success. It is in the reproductive interest of members of both sexes to mate with those who are disposed to sacrifice their interests to help them and their offspring, and there is a great deal of evidence that humans are attracted to mates who possess altruistic traits. Altruistic traits signal “good genes,” and constitute costly signals that indicate that those who posses them have been strong and vital enough to survive in spite of them. Although issues pertaining to sex are closely associated with morality in the minds of most people, psychological accounts of morality tend to neglect them.

This chapter considers two theories that develop an alternative basis to trust for accurate signal interpretation. The two theories, both of which rely on the proposition that, if a signal can be made costly enough, this will communicate peaceful intent, are Charles Osgood’s GRIT policy and Andrew Kydd’s Reassurance Game. The former is a social-psychological approach, while the latter is a formal modelling approach. The chapter argues that neither has a convincing theory of how trust develops in adversarial contexts, and, as such, neither can explain how signals are interpreted accurately when these are sincerely aimed at communicating peaceful intent. For this, it is necessary to develop relationships of bonded trust and the mental state of trust as suspension that this makes possible.

This chapter delves into the question of how ritual facilitates social life and cooperation. Changing the focus from the action perspective to one of cooperation enables the investigation of the third test case: the ritual life of the Pauline assemblies. The chapter discusses the Commitment (Costly) Signalling Theory, developed by evolutionary anthropologists to analyse and predict how religious practices motivate cooperation. The theory involves problems—for example, it is not clear whether it is being presented as a theory of ritual or of religious behaviour in general—but Commitment Signalling is nevertheless helpful in enriching the social-scientific interpretation of the Pauline rituals. The mechanisms of social dynamics suggested by signalling theorists shed light on issues tackled by New Testament scholars, for example by providing a corrective to overly idealistic descriptions of the social life of the Pauline groups.

The focus in this chapter is on why honor killing ever came into existence as a social practice. The units for analysis are sociocultural systems and ecological pressures on the demographic groups among whom honor killing evolved. Here a population-level model of cultural evolution is employed to advance an argument for the best explanation for the development of honor killing. Only cultural systems performing adaptive functions continued among early desert nomads and pastoralist of the arid mountain uplands. Historical and anthropological research supports claims that severe ecological challenges led to two major functional systems: consanguine hierarchical patriarchy and the segmentary lineage system. Honor killing likewise evolved, first as a costly signaling system to avert loss of female reproductive assets and to avoid group splintering. It later evolved further as an exaptation and as a means of avoiding blood-related conflicts within segmentary lineage systems.

This chapter develops a theory of asymmetric interstate coercion. A coercive strategy includes compellent or deterrent demands, punishment or denial threats, and costly signals. The determinants of coercion success are measured, coercive diplomacy is considered where the use of force is only threatened, and the relationship between economic sanctions and coercion is discussed. A model of asymmetric coercion is developed where demands, threats and costly signals are determined by the powerful challenger and in response the weak target chooses whether to resist or concede. In equilibrium, a coercive strategy should only be adopted when the target is expected to concede. The coercion range depicts the set of successful coercive demands for which the challenger prefers coercion to accommodation or brute force and the target prefers concession to resistance. The chapter concludes by discussing rational and non-rational explanations for why coercion might still fail.

This chapter considers how the cybersecurity dilemma can be mitigated. It considers the ways in which states can act unilaterally to improve their baseline defenses, can form bilateral partnerships with other states, and can take action to signal that they are serious about addressing the problem. These include sending costly signals to other states in order to lend credibility to their professed intentions. In cybersecurity, zero day exploits and encryption policy offer opportunities to send costly signals. The chapter draws on Cold War history to provide conceptual examples for many of these actions.

This chapter takes on the task of explaining the stability of honest signals amongst agents with potentially divergent interests. The chapter identifies forms of low risk signalling and responding: many-to-many networks (where deception would be both difficult and would have unpredictable consequences); information-pooling contexts where there is no temptation to defect; cue/signal hybrids (like demonstrating a technique while using it), where an agent’s capacity to signal deceptively is constrained by the utilitarian functions of the signal; signals whose honesty is underwritten by the differential costs of honest and deceptive signals. These forms of low-risk communication are an evolutionary platform, making signalling and communication a central part of social life, thus selecting for more advanced capacities to both signal and to vet the signals of others. Dan Sperber and his colleagues have argued that metarepresentation and folk logic enable us to lower the risks of our very extensive social learning. This chapter extends and modifies that argument, while showing that these mechanisms evolve after and because low risk forms of social learning became central to ancient humans’ lives.

This chapter considers five perspectives on rituals. First, rituals can be seen as actions without a practical purpose, a view that goes back to Sigmund Freud and is reflected by the concepts of ritualization and the hazard precaution system. Second, Émile Durkheim considered ritual as the foundation of human society, an idea embraced by cognitive theories of “costly” or “honest” signaling in human cooperation. Third, the chapter examines rituals as tools of cultural transmission, focusing on Harvey Whitehouse’s theory of the modes of religiosity. Fourth, it turns to rituals that bring about changes, taking E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley’s ritual form theory as a starting point. Fifth, it introduces theories that point to the experience of the Holy as the goal of rituals. The chapter offers new perspectives on Jesus’ teaching about prayer in the Sermon of the Mount, Paul’s discussion of the Eucharist and baptism, among others.

Third-party punishment occurs among insect species, cleaner fish, and non-human primates. This suggests that organisms do not need a sophisticated sense of morality to be punitive. Why, then, did humans evolve a moral punishment instinct? The main proposition of this chapter is that people evolved a sense of morality as a consequence of their punishment instincts. In ancestral groups of hunter-gatherers, punishment had genetic consequences, as it frequently meant death, exclusion, or unattractively low social standing. Punishment therefore has put social selection pressures on our ancestors to evolve intrinsic motivations to pursue the interests of the group. Furthermore, whereas punishment is frequently portrayed as costly, the chapter illuminates that punishers also reap important benefits: punishment can be a form of costly signaling, emphasizing punishers’ power, making them attractive mates.

Why do some ideas of uncertain merit, like conspiracy theories, gain traction and spread through society? To date, conspiracy theory scholarship primarily focuses on thick description, generates case-specific hypotheses, and answers this question on an ad hoc basis. To take the next step in terms of scientific progress, the conspiracy theory literature must develop explanations that generalize across cases. To the extent that scholars have offered a more general explanation, they point to a formal theory called herd behavior, which was designed to explain why people believe ideas in the absence of much evidence. The herd behavior model has been advanced as a matter of convenience rather than as a result of critical assessment about the mechanisms in play. But it’s not the only mechanism by which a dubious ideas might spread and, furthermore, it fails to fit the facts of many cases where conspiracy theories gain traction. We consider how three other major political science explanations of opinion formation can be applied to conspiracy theories and provide a foundation for conspiracy theory researchers interested in moving from the scholarly conversation from description to explanation.

The book begins with an example of sacrifice enacted in the Roman Catholic Mass, celebrated and lived out by young nuns from India of the order of Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, caring for elderly Arabs in Cairo. Their sacrificial self-giving is compared to “costly signaling” of the rigorous demands issued by religious communes studied by Sosis and Bressler. The introduction argues that inasmuch as sacrifice seeks to establish a relation with transcendence, beyond natural and human reality, it cannot guarantee its own success—any more than human devotion can cause a miracle to occur. Sacrifice, then, signifies religious intention to restrain and conform natural impulses to a given order of spiritual ideals, illustrated by whirling dervishes.

The conclusion recapitulates the argument of the book. It shows as well the stakes of the problem, describing the damage that can flow from an unchecked cybersecurity dilemma. It shows how the cybersecurity dilemma can box states into self-defeating positions, can increase the risk of crises, and can make brinksmanship and misperception more dangerous. But the conclusion also notes that mitigating the cybersecurity dilemma has real costs, and states must be willing to make sacrifices in order to address the dangers—something that they may well be unwilling to do.