Stephen Younger (2005)
Reciprocity, Sanctions, and the Development of Mutual Obligation in Egalitarian Societies
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
vol. 8, no. 2
<https://www.jasss.org/8/2/9.html>
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Received: 26-Oct-2004 Accepted: 17-Dec-2004 Published: 31-Mar-2005
Table 1: Effect of different models of sharing on the total mutual obligation within the artificial society | ||
Model for Sharing | Mutual Obligation | Standard Deviation |
Indiscriminant Sharing | 330 | 58 |
Share Only with Head of Household | 160 | 21 |
Share Only Within Family | 190 | 21 |
Share Only With Other Sharing Agents* | 210 | 20 |
* Only six of the twenty runs in this case had a population that survived until the end of the run. All other models, had a non-zero population at the end of every run. | ||
Table 2: Comparison of the simulation results with the observations of the Mer Islanders. The first three columns are taken from Bliege Bird and Bird (1997) | |||||
Observations of the Mer Islanders | Simulation | ||||
Model | Prediction | Result | Rule | Result | |
Kinship | Households with no patrilineal kin nearby should send shares to kin living farther away rather than share with nonkin neighbors | Not supported | Share only within family | Mutual obligation lower than for indiscriminant sharing | |
Tolerated Theft | Larger households should receive larger portions of turtle meat from the distributing household at each butchery event | Supported | Share with head of household only independent of size of family | Mutual obligation lower than for sharing with each individual | |
Risk-reduction Reciprocity | Households that never hunt should never receive shares | Not supported | Do not share with non-sharing agents | Mutual obligation lower than for indiscriminant sharing | |
Figure 1. Percentage of runs where one, both, or neither subpopulation of normative and non-normative agents survive until the end of the run. Note that for toltheft = -1000000, no sanctions were ever applied to non-normative agents, so we present only the results of the Baseline and Transfer scenarios |
Figure 2. Left: Probability of survival for normative and non-normative subpopulations as a function of toltheft, the tolerance to theft. Right: Percent probability of collapse for the total population. Here toltheft = 0 implies zero tolerance to theft and toltheft = -120 implies a large tolerance to theft. All curves were computed for the Baseline scenario |
Figure 3. Mutual obligation factors for the total population and for agents in groups. Mutual obligation was defined as the sum of the interaction matrix elements connecting agents in the population. Sharing contributed to, and stealing detracted from, the interaction matrix elements |
Table 3: Averages and standard deviations for key parameters taken over all runs that had a non-zero population at the end of the run | |||||||||||||
Tolerance = 0 | Tolerance = -20 | Tolerance = -1,000,000 | |||||||||||
Baseline | Transfer | Rejection | Ostracism | Baseline | Transfer | Rejection | Ostracism | Baseline | Transfer | ||||
Fraction Normative | 0.96 | 0.96 | 0.95 | 0.95 | 0.76 | 0.74 | 0.78 | 0.88 | 0.16 | 0.16 | |||
Standard Deviation | 0.0038 | 0.0031 | 0.0044 | 0.028 | 0.18 | 0.18 | 0.14 | 0.054 | 0.13 | 0.13 | |||
Mutual Obligation | |||||||||||||
Normative Agents | 350 | 400 | 410 | 400 | 370 | 400 | 400 | 400 | 130 | 120 | |||
Standard Deviation | 50 | 61 | 51 | 47 | 73 | 73 | 76 | 65 | 57 | 66 | |||
Non-Normative Agents | -140 | -140 | -140 | -130 | -810 | -910 | -820 | -260 | -3400 | -3400 | |||
Standard Deviation | 16 | 22 | 18 | 17 | 400 | 490 | 360 | 84 | 920 | 1000 | |||
Total Population | 330 | 370 | 390 | 370 | 37 | -5.7 | 96 | 310 | -2900 | -2900 | |||
Standard Deviation | 48 | 58 | 48 | 48 | 380 | 440 | 360 | 84 | 990 | 1120 | |||
Agents in Groups | 300 | 400 | 430 | 400 | 79 | 110 | 220 | 380 | -2400 | -2500 | |||
Standard Deviation | 85 | 75 | 74 | 62 | 350 | 410 | 300 | 98 | 1200 | 1200 | |||
Sharing Rate per Agent | 0.045 | 0.051 | 0.050 | 0.050 | 0.038 | 0.039 | 0.040 | 0.049 | 0.0087 | 0.0091 | |||
Standard Deviation | 0.0053 | 0.0030 | 0.0038 | 0.0061 | 0.010 | 0.0089 | 0.0066 | 0.0039 | 0.0055 | 0.0075 | |||
Stealing Rate per Agent | 0.039 | 0.039 | 0.039 | 0.037 | 0.020 | 0.023 | 0.019 | 0.011 | 0.044 | 0.045 | |||
Standard Deviation | 0.00040 | 0.00042 | 0.00043 | 0.00045 | 0.012 | 0.015 | 0.012 | 0.0059 | 0.0061 | 0.0043 | |||
Percent Runs that Survive | 94 | 92 | 92 | 96 | 50 | 54 | 44 | 64 | 100 | 96 | |||
Figure 4. Comparison of the mutual obligation for the total population and for agents in groups for the case of matrilineal inheritance of normative character and for a fixed distribution of 50% and 90% sharing agents. Mutual obligation was defined as the sum of the interaction matrix elements connecting agents in the population. Sharing contributed to, and stealing detracted from, the interaction matrix elements |
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