University of California, San Diego
The Department of Psychology is Honored
to Present a Talk by
Robert Boyd
University of California, Los Angeles
"ECONOMIC EXPERIMENTS IN 15 SMALL SCALE SOCIETIES"
Presented on April 14, 2005
Location: The Crick Conference Room
Mandler Hall, room 3545
- Abstract:
- Experimental economists have found consistent deviations from the
predictions of the canonical model of self-interest, with strikingly
similar results in over a hundred experiments around the world. Most
existing research cannot determine whether the uniformity of the
observed deviations from the canonical model are expressions of
universal psychological predispositions, or reflect the limited
cultural variation among the university students making up the subject
pools in virtually all experiments. To address the above questions, we
undertook a crosscultural study of ultimatum, public good, and
Dictator Games in fifteen small-scale societies that exhibit a wide
variety of economic and cultural conditions.
We found, first, that the canonical selfishness-based model is not supported in any of these societies, and it fails in novel ways. Second, there is considerably more behavioral variability across groups than had been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosocial behavior in experimental games. Fourth, individual-level economic and demographic variables do not explain behavior either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect common patterns of interaction in everyday life.
- About the Speaker:
- Unlike other organisms, humans acquire a rich body of information from others by teaching, imitation, and other forms of social learning, and this culturally transmitted information strongly influences human behavior. Culture is an essential part of the human adaptation, and as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion or thick enamel on our molars. My research is focused on the evolutionary psychology of the mechanisms that give rise to and shape human culture, and how these mechanisms interact with population dynamic processes to shape human cultural variation.
For More Information About This Speaker:
- http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/boyd/
Dr. Boyd's website.
