How Natural Selection Can Create Both Self- and Other-Regarding Preferences, and Networked Minds
Abstract
Biological competition is widely believed to result in the evolution of selfish preferences. The related concept of the `homo economicus' is at the core of mainstream economics. However, there is also experimental and empirical evidence for other-regarding preferences. Here we present a theory that explains both, self-regarding and other-regarding preferences. Assuming conditions promoting non-cooperative behaviour, we demonstrate that intergenerational migration determines whether evolutionary competition results in a `homo economicus' (showing self-regarding preferences) or a `homo socialis' (having other-regarding preferences). Our model assumes spatially interacting agents playing prisoner's dilemmas, who inherit a trait determining `friendliness', but mutations tend to undermine it. Reproduction is ruled by fitness-based selection without a cultural modification of reproduction rates. Our model calls for a complementary economic theory for `networked minds' (the `homo socialis') and lays the foundations for an evolutionarily grounded theory of other-regarding agents, explaining individually different utility functions as well as conditional cooperation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1304.1746,
title = {How Natural Selection Can Create Both Self- and Other-Regarding Preferences, and Networked Minds},
author = {Thomas Grund and Christian Waloszek and Dirk Helbing},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1304.1746},
year = {2013}
}