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Research Article

Ontogeny of prosocial behavior across diverse societies

Bailey R. House, Joan B. Silk, Joseph Henrich, H. Clark Barrett, Brooke A. Scelza, Adam H. Boyette, Barry S. Hewlett, Richard McElreath, and Stephen Laurence
  1. aDepartment of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024;
  2. bSchool of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287;
  3. cDepartments of Psychology and Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4;
  4. dDepartment of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA 98686;
  5. eDepartment of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; and
  6. fDepartment of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7QB, United Kingdom

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PNAS first published August 19, 2013; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1221217110
Bailey R. House
aDepartment of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024;
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  • For correspondence: bailey.house@gmail.com
Joan B. Silk
bSchool of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287;
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Joseph Henrich
cDepartments of Psychology and Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4;
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H. Clark Barrett
aDepartment of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024;
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Brooke A. Scelza
aDepartment of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024;
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Adam H. Boyette
dDepartment of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA 98686;
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Barry S. Hewlett
dDepartment of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA 98686;
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Richard McElreath
eDepartment of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; and
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Stephen Laurence
fDepartment of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7QB, United Kingdom
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  1. Edited by Susan Gelman, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved July 1, 2013 (received for review December 13, 2012)

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Abstract

Humans are an exceptionally cooperative species, but there is substantial variation in the extent of cooperation across societies. Understanding the sources of this variability may provide insights about the forces that sustain cooperation. We examined the ontogeny of prosocial behavior by studying 326 children 3–14 y of age and 120 adults from six societies (age distributions varied across societies). These six societies span a wide range of extant human variation in culture, geography, and subsistence strategies, including foragers, herders, horticulturalists, and urban dwellers across the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. When delivering benefits to others was personally costly, rates of prosocial behavior dropped across all six societies as children approached middle childhood and then rates of prosociality diverged as children tracked toward the behavior of adults in their own societies. When prosocial acts did not require personal sacrifice, prosocial responses increased steadily as children matured with little variation in behavior across societies. Our results are consistent with theories emphasizing the importance of acquired cultural norms in shaping costly forms of cooperation and creating cross-cultural diversity.

  • development
  • population differences
  • gene-culture coevolution

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bailey.house{at}gmail.com.
  • Author contributions: B.R.H., J.B.S., J.H., H.C.B., and S.L. designed research; B.R.H., J.B.S., H.C.B., B.A.S., and A.H.B. performed research; B.R.H. and R.M. analyzed data; and B.R.H., J.B.S., J.H., H.C.B., B.A.S., A.H.B., B.S.H., R.M., and S.L. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • Data deposition: The data described in this paper is available on the website of the Culture and the Mind project, at http://www.philosophy.dept.shef.ac.uk/culture&mind/Data.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1221217110/-/DCSupplemental.

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Ontogeny of prosociality across diverse societies
Bailey R. House, Joan B. Silk, Joseph Henrich, H. Clark Barrett, Brooke A. Scelza, Adam H. Boyette, Barry S. Hewlett, Richard McElreath, Stephen Laurence
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2013, 201221217; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1221217110

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Ontogeny of prosociality across diverse societies
Bailey R. House, Joan B. Silk, Joseph Henrich, H. Clark Barrett, Brooke A. Scelza, Adam H. Boyette, Barry S. Hewlett, Richard McElreath, Stephen Laurence
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2013, 201221217; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1221217110
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