Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37588371›Full record

ArticleEvolutionary human sciences2020

The demography of human warfare can drive sex differences in altruism.

Alberto J C Micheletti, Graeme D Ruxton, Andy Gardner

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Evolutionary human sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Evolution of warfare by resource raiding favours polymorphism in belligerence and bravery.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022
    Article
  4. Culture and group-functional punishment behaviour.Evolutionary human sciences · 2022
    Article
  5. The evolution of altruism through war is highly sensitive to population structure and to civilian and fighter mortality.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Alberto J C MichelettiSchool of Biology, University of St Andrews, Dyers Brae, St Andrews KY16 9TH, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7062-2655
Graeme D RuxtonSchool of Biology, University of St Andrews, Dyers Brae, St Andrews KY16 9TH, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8943-6609
Andy GardnerSchool of Biology, University of St Andrews, Dyers Brae, St Andrews KY16 9TH, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1304-3734

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Recent years have seen great interest in the suggestion that between-group aggression and within-group altruism have coevolved. However, these efforts have neglected the possibility that warfare - via its impact on demography - might influence human social behaviours more widely, not just those directly connected to success in war. Moreover, the potential for sex differences in the demography of warfare to translate into sex differences in social behaviour more generally has remained unexplored. Here, we develop a kin-selection model of altruism performed by men and women for the benefit of their groupmates in a population experiencing intergroup conflict. We find that warfare can promote altruistic, helping behaviours as the additional reproductive opportunities winners obtain in defeated groups decrease harmful competition between kin. Furthermore, we find that sex can be a crucial modulator of altruism, with there being a tendency for the sex that competes more intensely with relatives to behave more altruistically and for the sex that competes more intensely with non-relatives in defeated groups to receive more altruism. In addition, there is also a tendency for the less-dispersing sex to both give and receive more altruism. We discuss implications for our understanding of observed sex differences in cooperation in human societies.

Indexed as

cooperationkin competitionparochial altruismsex-biased dispersalWar

Identifiers

PMID37588371
PMCPMC10427324

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.