Reciprocity as The General Theory of Altruism
by Steven Gussman Four complementary bases for altruism have been proposed in the biological sciences: kin selection ( nepotism ), 1 reciprocal altruism ( friendship through trade ), 2 sexual signaling (altruism that is attractive to onlooking prospective mates), 3 and manipulation (one individual coercing resources from another). 4 Reciprocal altruism is a selection pressure which entails that a reciprocally altruistic trait (where the altruist and recipient ‘take turns’ in each role) can evolve as long as it leaves both parties better off than if they had not undergone the trade (meaning that for reciprocity to evolve, free riders need to be excluded ). 5 The governing inequality can be seen in figure 1: 6 (1/p²)(Σb altruist, k – Σc altruist, j ) > (1/q²)Σb cheater, m That is that summing over repeated encounters, and taking into account the frequency of the altruistic allele p, and the frequency of the cheater allele q, the diff...