Title |
The Alliance Hypothesis for Human Friendship
|
---|---|
Published in |
PLOS ONE, June 2009
|
DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0005802 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Peter DeScioli, Robert Kurzban |
Abstract |
Exploration of the cognitive systems underlying human friendship will be advanced by identifying the evolved functions these systems perform. Here we propose that human friendship is caused, in part, by cognitive mechanisms designed to assemble support groups for potential conflicts. We use game theory to identify computations about friends that can increase performance in multi-agent conflicts. This analysis suggests that people would benefit from: 1) ranking friends, 2) hiding friend-ranking, and 3) ranking friends according to their own position in partners' rankings. These possible tactics motivate the hypotheses that people possess egocentric and allocentric representations of the social world, that people are motivated to conceal this information, and that egocentric friend-ranking is determined by allocentric representations of partners' friend-rankings (more than others' traits). |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Japan | 1 | 9% |
United States | 1 | 9% |
Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of | 1 | 9% |
Philippines | 1 | 9% |
Unknown | 7 | 64% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 10 | 91% |
Scientists | 1 | 9% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 5 | 2% |
United Kingdom | 5 | 2% |
Netherlands | 3 | 1% |
Hungary | 2 | <1% |
Italy | 1 | <1% |
Canada | 1 | <1% |
Germany | 1 | <1% |
Romania | 1 | <1% |
New Zealand | 1 | <1% |
Other | 2 | <1% |
Unknown | 191 | 90% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 46 | 22% |
Student > Bachelor | 37 | 17% |
Student > Master | 25 | 12% |
Researcher | 24 | 11% |
Professor | 19 | 9% |
Other | 48 | 23% |
Unknown | 14 | 7% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Psychology | 88 | 41% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 31 | 15% |
Social Sciences | 31 | 15% |
Business, Management and Accounting | 7 | 3% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 7 | 3% |
Other | 26 | 12% |
Unknown | 23 | 11% |