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When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology
We use techniques from evolutionary game theory to analyze the conditions under which guilt can provide individual fitness benefits, and so evolve. In particular, we focus on the benefits of guilty apology. We consider models where actors err in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma and have the option to...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2018
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7805885/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33500896 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2018.00009 |
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author | Rosenstock, Sarita O’Connor, Cailin |
author_facet | Rosenstock, Sarita O’Connor, Cailin |
author_sort | Rosenstock, Sarita |
collection | PubMed |
description | We use techniques from evolutionary game theory to analyze the conditions under which guilt can provide individual fitness benefits, and so evolve. In particular, we focus on the benefits of guilty apology. We consider models where actors err in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma and have the option to apologize. Guilt either improves the trustworthiness of apology or imposes a cost on actors who apologize. We analyze the stability and likelihood of evolution of such a “guilt-prone” strategy against cooperators, defectors, grim triggers, and individuals who offer fake apologies, but continue to defect. We find that in evolutionary models guilty apology is more likely to evolve in cases where actors interact repeatedly over long periods of time, where the costs of apology are low or moderate, and where guilt is hard to fake. Researchers interested in naturalized ethics, and emotion researchers, can employ these results to assess the plausibility of fuller accounts of the evolution of guilt. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7805885 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78058852021-01-25 When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology Rosenstock, Sarita O’Connor, Cailin Front Robot AI Robotics and AI We use techniques from evolutionary game theory to analyze the conditions under which guilt can provide individual fitness benefits, and so evolve. In particular, we focus on the benefits of guilty apology. We consider models where actors err in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma and have the option to apologize. Guilt either improves the trustworthiness of apology or imposes a cost on actors who apologize. We analyze the stability and likelihood of evolution of such a “guilt-prone” strategy against cooperators, defectors, grim triggers, and individuals who offer fake apologies, but continue to defect. We find that in evolutionary models guilty apology is more likely to evolve in cases where actors interact repeatedly over long periods of time, where the costs of apology are low or moderate, and where guilt is hard to fake. Researchers interested in naturalized ethics, and emotion researchers, can employ these results to assess the plausibility of fuller accounts of the evolution of guilt. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7805885/ /pubmed/33500896 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2018.00009 Text en Copyright © 2018 Rosenstock and O’Connor. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Robotics and AI Rosenstock, Sarita O’Connor, Cailin When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology |
title | When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology |
title_full | When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology |
title_fullStr | When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology |
title_full_unstemmed | When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology |
title_short | When It’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology |
title_sort | when it’s good to feel bad: an evolutionary model of guilt and apology |
topic | Robotics and AI |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7805885/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33500896 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2018.00009 |
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