IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0204321.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trust-based altruism facing new contexts: The Vyegwa-Gika pygmies from Burundi

Author

Listed:
  • Cristina Acedo-Carmona
  • Enric Munar
  • Antoni Gomila

Abstract

The community of Pygmies settled in Vyegwa-Gika provides an exceptional case study to test the role of trust in the evolution of altruism. The Vyegwa-Gika Pygmies were forced to migrate from rainforests to the savanna, changing quickly their environment, culture, and socio-economic situation. Despite the high level of poverty they suffer in this new settlement, we found evidence of strong altruistic attitudes toward trustees when playing an economic game. In addition, Vyegwa-Gika Pygmies keep small personal trust networks despite the fact they share frequent social interactions within the community. These results indicate the great effectiveness of personal trust in fostering altruism, even if the circumstances make it difficult to establish such kind of affective bonds. A theory of the evolution of altruism should therefore also account for the evolution of psychology of trust, as a key element in the process.

Suggested Citation

  • Cristina Acedo-Carmona & Enric Munar & Antoni Gomila, 2018. "Trust-based altruism facing new contexts: The Vyegwa-Gika pygmies from Burundi," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-13, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0204321
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204321
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204321&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0204321?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Herbert Gintis, 2000. "Strong Reciprocity and Human Sociality," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2000-02, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    3. Dietlind Stolle & Stuart Soroka & Richard Johnston, 2008. "When Does Diversity Erode Trust? Neighborhood Diversity, Interpersonal Trust and the Mediating Effect of Social Interactions," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(1), pages 57-75, March.
    4. Helen Bernhard & Urs Fischbacher & Ernst Fehr, 2006. "Parochial altruism in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 442(7105), pages 912-915, August.
    5. Cristina Acedo-Carmona & Antoni Gomila, 2014. "Personal Trust Increases Cooperation beyond General Trust," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-10, August.
    6. Dietlind Stolle & Stuart Soroka & Richard Johnston, 2008. "When Does Diversity Erode Trust? Neighborhood Diversity, Interpersonal Trust and the Mediating Effect of Social Interactions," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56, pages 57-75, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christine Clavien & Colby J Tanner & Fabrice Clément & Michel Chapuisat, 2012. "Choosy Moral Punishers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-6, June.
    2. Bicskei, Marianna & Lankau, Matthias & Bizer, Kilian, 2016. "Negative reciprocity and its relation to anger-like emotions in identity-homogeneous and -heterogeneous groups," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 17-34.
    3. Karl McShane, 2017. "Getting Used to Diversity? Immigration and Trust in Sweden," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 1895-1910.
    4. Anne Marie Jeannet, 2017. "The Rational Public? Internal Migration and Collective Opinion about the European Union," Working Papers 103, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    5. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David & Peterle, Emmanuel, 2018. "Discrimination as favoritism: The private benefits and social costs of in-group favoritism in an experimental labor market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 220-236.
    6. Guzmán, Ricardo Andrés & Rodríguez-Sickert, Carlos & Rowthorn, Robert, 2006. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do: the coevolution of altruistic punishment, conformist learning, and cooperation," MPRA Paper 2037, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. David Masclet & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2006. "Punishment, Inequality and Emotions," Working Papers 0604, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    8. Haifeng Qian, 2013. "Diversity Versus Tolerance: The Social Drivers of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in US Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(13), pages 2718-2735, October.
    9. Drouvelis, Michalis & Malaeb, Bilal & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wahba, Jackline, 2021. "Cooperation in a fragmented society: Experimental evidence on Syrian refugees and natives in Lebanon," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 176-191.
    10. Bartoš, Vojtěch, 2021. "Seasonal scarcity and sharing norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 303-316.
    11. Andrea Tesei, 2015. "Trust and Racial Income Inequality: Evidence from the U.S," Working Papers 737, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    12. Simon Halliday, 2011. "Rarer Actions: Giving and Taking in Third-Party Punishment Games," Working Papers 211, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    13. Fernanda Bethlem Tigre & Paulo Lopes Henriques & Carla Curado, 2022. "Building trustworthiness: Leadership self-portraits," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 3971-3991, December.
    14. Esther Kristina Diekhof & Susanne Wittmer & Luise Reimers, 2014. "Does Competition Really Bring Out the Worst? Testosterone, Social Distance and Inter-Male Competition Shape Parochial Altruism in Human Males," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-11, July.
    15. Tak Wing Chan & Juta Kawalerowicz, 2022. "Social Diversity and Social Cohesion in Britain," DoQSS Working Papers 22-10, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    16. Tünde Paál & Tamás Bereczkei, 2015. "Punishment as a Means of Competition: Implications for Strong Reciprocity Theory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-14, March.
    17. Mavridis, Dimitris, 2015. "Ethnic Diversity and Social Capital in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 376-395.
    18. Cary Wu, 2021. "How Stable is Generalized Trust? Internal Migration and the Stability of Trust Among Canadians," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 129-147, January.
    19. Jeremy Horpedahl & Jeremy Jackson & David Mitchell, 2019. "Is Economic Freedom the Hidden Path to Social Justice?," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 34(Winter 20), pages 55-74.
    20. Annamaria Nese & Patrizia Sbriglia, 2009. "Individuals' Voting Choice and Cooperation in Repeated Social Dilemma Games," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 025, University of Siena.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0204321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.