2025/01/15 by Jelle de Boer · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Psychology · Neuroscience · #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Cultural Differences and Values #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
paper · doi:10.1080/09515089.2024.2445697
openalex publication_date 2025/01/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This paper examines biology-inspired costly signaling explanations when applied to human conduct. Such explanations are part of a trend in the human behavioral sciences to investigate elements of human behavior as outcomes of quasi-Darwinian processes. The paper addresses four methodological concerns. The first worry is that quite often the requisite empirical support, in terms of population dynamics, appears to be missing. Second, fairly plausible alternative explanations are not considered or too easily disregarded. Third, the mechanism that is supposed to cause reproduction and spread in a population is insufficiently spelled out. Fourth, and more specifically, it is often unclear how exactly false signaling (cheating) would be selected against.