Experimental Psychology Seminar - The evolutionary origins of cooperation in humans

Speaker: Miguel Dos Santos, University of Oxford

Explaining how cooperation can evolve between individuals with conflicting interests is central to biology, as major evolutionary transitions, from the first replicating molecules to human societies, have required solving this problem. There are many routes to cooperation but humans seem to be distinct from other species as they have more complex and diverse mechanisms, often due to their higher cognitive skills. Among those mechanisms, the use of reputation, or past experience with others, as well as sanctioning mechanisms, such as punishment, both seem to be of major importance in human interactions. Using a combination of theoretical and empirical approaches, we show how the interaction between punishment and reputation provide new insights as to how punishment could have initially evolved as a means to enforce public goods cooperation in early humans.

Time: 4pm, 31st January 2017

Venue: Room 305, 26 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AP