IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/mgtdec/v27y2006i2-3p103-129.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cognitive adaptations for n-person exchange: the evolutionary roots of organizational behavior

Author

Listed:
  • John Tooby

    (Center for Evolutionary Psychology, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3210, USA)

  • Leda Cosmides

    (Center for Evolutionary Psychology, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3210, USA)

  • Michael E. Price

Abstract

Organizations are composed of stable, predominantly cooperative interactions or n-person exchanges. Humans have been engaging in n-person exchanges for a great enough period of evolutionary time that we appear to have evolved a distinct constellation of species-typical mechanisms specialized to solve the adaptive problems posed by this form of social interaction. These mechanisms appear to have been evolutionarily elaborated out of the cognitive infrastructure that initially evolved for dyadic exchange. Key adaptive problems that these mechanisms are designed to solve include coordination among individuals, and defense against exploitation by free riders. Multi-individual cooperation could not have been maintained over evolutionary time if free riders reliably benefited more than contributors to collective enterprises, and so outcompeted them. As a result, humans evolved mechanisms that implement an aversion to exploitation by free riding, and a strategy of conditional cooperation, supplemented by punitive sentiment towards free riders. Because of the design of these mechanisms, how free riding is treated is a central determinant of the survival and health of cooperative organizations. The mapping of the evolved psychology of n-party exchange cooperation may contribute to the construction of a principled theoretical foundation for the understanding of human behavior in organizations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • John Tooby & Leda Cosmides & Michael E. Price, 2006. "Cognitive adaptations for n-person exchange: the evolutionary roots of organizational behavior," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2-3), pages 103-129.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:27:y:2006:i:2-3:p:103-129
    DOI: 10.1002/mde.1287
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/mde.1287
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/mde.1287?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. Hoffman, Elizabeth & McCabe, Kevin A & Smith, Vernon L, 1998. "Behavioral Foundations of Reciprocity: Experimental Economics and Evolutionary Psychology," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(3), pages 335-352, July.
    2. Fischbacher, Urs & Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 2001. "Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 397-404, June.
    3. Henrich, Joseph, 2004. "Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 3-35, January.
    4. Karthik Panchanathan & Robert Boyd, 2004. "Indirect reciprocity can stabilize cooperation without the second-order free rider problem," Nature, Nature, vol. 432(7016), pages 499-502, November.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "The nature of human altruism," Nature, Nature, vol. 425(6960), pages 785-791, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Leenheer & Maurice Gesthuizen & Michael Savelkoul, 2021. "Two-Way, One-Way or Dead-End Streets? Financial and Social Causes and Consequences of Generalized Trust," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 915-937, June.
    2. Kyong-sun Jin & Fransisca Ting & Zijing He & Renée Baillargeon, 2024. "Infants expect some degree of positive and negative reciprocity between strangers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Benito Arruñada & Xosé H. Vázquez, 2009. "Behavioral assumptions and management ability," Economics Working Papers 1157, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Apr 2010.
    4. Nicolas Baumard, 2010. "Has punishment played a role in the evolution of cooperation? A critical review," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 9(2), pages 171-192, December.
    5. Arnaud Wolff, 2019. "On the Function of Beliefs in Strategic Social Interactions," Working Papers of BETA 2019-41, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    6. Dincer, Oguzhan C. & Fredriksson, Per G., 2018. "Corruption and environmental regulatory policy in the United States: Does trust matter?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 212-225.
    7. Zachary Garfield & Kristen Syme & Edward H. Hagen, 2020. "Universal and variable leadership dimensions across human societies," Post-Print hal-03162384, HAL.
    8. Marie Ritter & Meng Wang & Johannes Pritz & Olaf Menssen & Margarete Boos, 2021. "How collective reward structure impedes group decision making: An experimental study using the HoneyComb paradigm," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(11), pages 1-20, November.
    9. Varela-Neira, Concepción & Araujo, Marisa del Río & Sanmartín, Emilio Ruzo, 2018. "How and when a salesperson's perception of organizational politics relates to proactive performance," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 660-670.
    10. Johnson, Dominic D.P. & Price, Michael E. & Van Vugt, Mark, 2013. "Darwin's invisible hand: Market competition, evolution and the firm," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 128-140.
    11. Rusch, Hannes, 2018. "Ancestral kinship patterns substantially reduce the negative effect of increasing group size on incentives for public goods provision," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 105-115.
    12. Anne C Pisor & Michael Gurven, 2015. "Corruption and the Other(s): Scope of Superordinate Identity Matters for Corruption Permissibility," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(12), pages 1-24, December.
    13. Han Xiao & Cheng Ma & Hongwei Gao & Ye Gao & Yang Xue, 2022. "Green Transformation of Anti-Epidemic Supplies in the Post-Pandemic Era: An Evolutionary Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-26, May.
    14. Saad, Gad & Vongas, John G., 2009. "The effect of conspicuous consumption on men's testosterone levels," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 80-92, November.
    15. Price, Michael E., 2006. "Judgments about cooperators and freeriders on a Shuar work team: An evolutionary psychological perspective," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 20-35, September.
    16. David Pietraszewski & Leda Cosmides & John Tooby, 2014. "The Content of Our Cooperation, Not the Color of Our Skin: An Alliance Detection System Regulates Categorization by Coalition and Race, but Not Sex," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-19, February.

    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. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    2. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    3. Joseph Henrich, 2007. "The evolution of costly displays, cooperation, and religion. Inferentially potent displays and their implications for cultural evolution," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2007-21, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    4. Kim, Jeongbin & Putterman, Louis & Zhang, Xinyi, 2022. "Trust, Beliefs and Cooperation: Excavating a Foundation of Strong Economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    5. Damien Francey & Ralph Bergmüller, 2012. "Images of Eyes Enhance Investments in a Real-Life Public Good," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-7, May.
    6. Mullins, Daniel A. & Whitehouse, Harvey & Atkinson, Quentin D., 2013. "The role of writing and recordkeeping in the cultural evolution of human cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 141-151.
    7. Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew & Victoire D’Amico & Claire Guérin, 2022. "The Strategy Method Risks Conflating Confusion with a Social Preference for Conditional Cooperation in Public Goods Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-10, October.
    8. Cinyabuguma, Matthias & Page, Talbot & Putterman, Louis, 2005. "Cooperation under the threat of expulsion in a public goods experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1421-1435, August.
    9. Jahnke, Bjoern, 2015. "Tax morale and reciprocity. A case study from Vietnam," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-563, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    10. Mengel, Friederike, 2008. "Matching structure and the cultural transmission of social norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 608-623, September.
    11. Benno Torgler & Bruno S. Frey & Clevo Wilson, 2007. "Environmental and Pro-Social Norms: Evidence from 30 Countries," Working Papers 2007.84, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    12. Hang Ye & Fei Tan & Mei Ding & Yongmin Jia & Yefeng Chen, 2011. "Sympathy and Punishment: Evolution of Cooperation in Public Goods Game," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 14(4), pages 1-20.
    13. Kenju Kamei & Smriti Sharma & Matthew J. Walker, 2023. "Sanction Enforcement among Third Parties:New Experimental Evidence from Two Societies," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-010, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    14. Dong, Bin & Dulleck, Uwe & Torgler, Benno, 2012. "Conditional corruption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 609-627.
    15. 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.
    16. Talbot Page & Louis Putterman & Bulent Unel, 2005. "Voluntary Association in Public Goods Experiments: Reciprocity, Mimicry and Efficiency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(506), pages 1032-1053, October.
    17. Angelo Antoci & Luca Zarri, 2015. "Punish and perish?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(2), pages 195-223, May.
    18. Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Peter Hans Matthews, 2012. "Norm Enforcement: Anger, Indignation, Or Reciprocity?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 555-572, May.
    19. Rockenbach, Bettina & Tonke, Sebastian & Weiss, Arne R., 2021. "Self-serving behavior of the rich causes contagion effects among the poor," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 289-300.
    20. Osterloh, Margit & Rota, Sandra, 2007. "Open source software development--Just another case of collective invention?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 157-171, March.

    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:wly:mgtdec:v:27:y:2006:i:2-3:p:103-129. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/7976 .

    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.