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Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation

Social norms can promote cooperation by assigning reputations to individuals based on their past actions. A good reputation indicates that an individual is likely to reciprocate. A large body of research has established norms of moral assessment that promote cooperation, assuming reputations are obj...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Radzvilavicius, Arunas L, Stewart, Alexander J, Plotkin, Joshua B
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6488294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30964002
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44269
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author Radzvilavicius, Arunas L
Stewart, Alexander J
Plotkin, Joshua B
author_facet Radzvilavicius, Arunas L
Stewart, Alexander J
Plotkin, Joshua B
author_sort Radzvilavicius, Arunas L
collection PubMed
description Social norms can promote cooperation by assigning reputations to individuals based on their past actions. A good reputation indicates that an individual is likely to reciprocate. A large body of research has established norms of moral assessment that promote cooperation, assuming reputations are objective. But without a centralized institution to provide objective evaluation, opinions about an individual’s reputation may differ across a population. In this setting we study the role of empathy–the capacity to form moral evaluations from another person’s perspective. We show that empathy tends to foster cooperation by reducing the rate of unjustified defection. The norms of moral evaluation previously considered most socially beneficial depend on high levels of empathy, whereas different norms maximize social welfare in populations incapable of empathy. Finally, we show that empathy itself can evolve through social contagion. We conclude that a capacity for empathy is a key component for sustaining cooperation in societies.
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spelling pubmed-64882942019-05-01 Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation Radzvilavicius, Arunas L Stewart, Alexander J Plotkin, Joshua B eLife Evolutionary Biology Social norms can promote cooperation by assigning reputations to individuals based on their past actions. A good reputation indicates that an individual is likely to reciprocate. A large body of research has established norms of moral assessment that promote cooperation, assuming reputations are objective. But without a centralized institution to provide objective evaluation, opinions about an individual’s reputation may differ across a population. In this setting we study the role of empathy–the capacity to form moral evaluations from another person’s perspective. We show that empathy tends to foster cooperation by reducing the rate of unjustified defection. The norms of moral evaluation previously considered most socially beneficial depend on high levels of empathy, whereas different norms maximize social welfare in populations incapable of empathy. Finally, we show that empathy itself can evolve through social contagion. We conclude that a capacity for empathy is a key component for sustaining cooperation in societies. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2019-04-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6488294/ /pubmed/30964002 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44269 Text en © 2019, Radzvilavicius et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Biology
Radzvilavicius, Arunas L
Stewart, Alexander J
Plotkin, Joshua B
Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation
title Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation
title_full Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation
title_fullStr Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation
title_full_unstemmed Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation
title_short Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation
title_sort evolution of empathetic moral evaluation
topic Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6488294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30964002
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44269
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