| Punishment sustains large-scale cooperation in prestate warfare. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 21670285 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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Understanding cooperation and punishment in small-scale societies is crucial for explaining the origins of human cooperation. We studied warfare among the Turkana, a politically uncentralized, egalitarian, nomadic pastoral society in East Africa. Based on a representative sample of 88 recent raids, we show that the Turkana sustain costly cooperation in combat at a remarkably large scale, at least in part, through punishment of free-riders. Raiding parties comprised several hundred warriors and participants are not kin or day-to-day interactants. Warriors incur substantial risk of death and produce collective benefits. Cowardice and desertions occur, and are punished by community-imposed sanctions, including collective corporal punishment and fines. Furthermore, Turkana norms governing warfare benefit the ethnolinguistic group, a population of a half-million people, at the expense of smaller social groupings. These results challenge current views that punishment is unimportant in small-scale societies and that human cooperation evolved in small groups of kin and familiar individuals. Instead, these results suggest that cooperation at the larger scale of ethnolinguistic units enforced by third-party sanctions could have a deep evolutionary history in the human species. |
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Authors:
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Sarah Mathew; Robert Boyd |
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Publication Detail:
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Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. Date: 2011-06-13 |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Volume: 108 ISSN: 1091-6490 ISO Abbreviation: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. Publication Date: 2011 Jul |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2011-07-13 Completed Date: 2011-09-20 Revised Date: 2012-01-12 |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 7505876 Medline TA: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Country: United States |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 11375-80 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
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Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. smathew@ucla.edu |
Export Citation:
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APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
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Africa, Eastern Altruism Cooperative Behavior* Ethnic Groups Humans Male Models, Psychological Punishment* Social Environment War* |
| Grant Support | |
ID/Acronym/Agency:
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1RC1TW008631/RC/CCR NIH HHS |
| Comments/Corrections | |
Comment In:
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Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Sep 27;108(39):E753; author reply E754
[PMID:
21940496
]
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From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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