No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Peace is a form of cooperation, and so are the cultural technologies which make peace possible
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2024
Abstract
While necessary parts of the puzzle, cultural technologies are insufficient to explain peace. They are a form of second-order cooperation – a cooperative interaction designed to incentivize first-order cooperation. We propose an explanation for peacemaking cultural technologies, and therefore peace, based on the reputational incentives for second-order cooperation.
- Type
- Open Peer Commentary
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
Axelrod, R., & Hamilton, W. D. (1981). The evolution of cooperation. Science (New York, N.Y.), 211(4489), 1390–1396.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fry, D. P., Souillac, G., Liebovitch, L., Coleman, P. T., Agan, K., Nicholson-Cox, E., … Strauss, S. (2021). Societies within peace systems avoid war and build positive intergroup relationships. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garfield, Z. H., Schacht, R., Post, E. R., Ingram, D., Uehling, A., & Macfarlan, S. J. (2021). The content and structure of reputation domains across human societies: A view from the evolutionary social sciences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1838), 20200296.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garfield, Z. H., Syme, K. L., & Hagen, E. H. (2020). Universal and variable leadership dimensions across human societies. Evolution and Human Behavior, 41(5), 397–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glowacki, L., & Gonc, K. (2013). Customary institutions and traditions in pastoralist societies: Neglected potential for conflict resolution. Conflict Trends, 2013(1), 26–32.Google Scholar
Glowacki, L., & von Rueden, C. (2015). Leadership solves collective action problems in small-scale societies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1683), 20150010.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gurven, M., Allen-Arave, W., Hill, K., & Hurtado, M. (2000). “It's a wonderful life”: Signaling generosity among the Ache of Paraguay. Evolution and Human Behavior, 21(4), 263–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, W. D. (1963). The evolution of altruistic behavior. The American Naturalist, 97(896), 354–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., & Muthukrishna, M. (2021). The origins and psychology of human cooperation. Annual Review of Psychology, 72, 207–240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lie-Panis, J., & André, J. B. (2022). Cooperation as a signal of time preferences. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 289(1973), 20212266.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mell, H., Baumard, N., & André, J. B. (2021). Time is money. Waiting costs explain why selection favors steeper time discounting in deprived environments. Evolution and Human Behavior, 42(4), 379–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, D. C. (1991). Institutions. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), 97–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (1998). Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring. Nature, 393(6685), 573–577.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panchanathan, K., & Boyd, R. (2003). A tale of two defectors: The importance of standing for evolution of indirect reciprocity. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 224(1), 115–126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Persson, A., Rothstein, B., & Teorell, J. (2013). Why anticorruption reforms fail – Systemic corruption as a collective action problem. Governance, 26(3), 449–471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powers, S. T., Van Schaik, C. P., & Lehmann, L. (2016). How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1687), 20150098.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singh, M., Wrangham, R., & Glowacki, L. (2017). Self-interest and the design of rules. Human Nature, 28, 457–480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sugiyama, L. S. (2004). Illness, injury, and disability among Shiwiar forager-horticulturalists: Implications of health-risk buffering for the evolution of human life history. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 123(4), 371–389.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
von Rueden, C. (2014). The roots and fruits of social status in small-scale human societies. In J. Cheng, J. Tracy & C. Anderson (Eds.), The Psychology of Social Status (pp. 179–200). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0867-7_9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamagishi, T. (1986). The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good. Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 51(1), 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Target article
The evolution of peace
Related commentaries (30)
A game of raids: Expanding on a game theoretical approach utilising the prisoner's dilemma and ethnography in situ
A neurological foundation for peaceful negotiations
Capacities for peace, and war, are old and related to Homo construction of worlds and communities
Creating shared goals and experiences as a pathway to peace
Cultural technologies for peace may have shaped our social cognition
Economic games for the study of peace
Enhanced cooperation increases the capacity for conflict
Evolution, culture, and the possibility of peace
Experimental evidence suggests intergroup relations are, by default, neutral rather than aggressive
Group-structured cultural selection can explain both war and peace
How language and agriculture promote culture- and peace-promoting norms
Impediments to peace
Is peace a human phenomenon?
Language likely promoted peace before 100,000 ya
On peace and its logic
On the evolved psychological mechanisms that make peace and reconciliation between groups possible
Peace as prerequisite rather than consequence of cooperation
Peace in other primates
Peace is a form of cooperation, and so are the cultural technologies which make peace possible
Police for peace
Rethinking peace from a bonobo perspective
Social and economic interdependence as a basis for peaceful between-group relationships in nonhuman primates and humans
Social norms, mentalising, and common knowledge, in making peace and war
The evolution of (intergroup) peace hinges on how we define groups and peace
The evolution of peace (and war) is driven by an elementary social interaction mechanism
The importance of social rejection as reputational sanction in fostering peace
The intertwined nature of peace and war
The psychology of intergroup relations was grounded in intragroup processes
The role of religion in the evolution of peace
The roots of peace
Author response
Author's response: The challenge of peace