ArticleEvolutionary human sciences2026
Testing evolutionary theories of human cooperation via meta-analysis of microfinance repayment.
Article in Evolutionary human sciences, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Explaining how cooperation evolves is a major research programme in the biological and social sciences. In this study, we tested evolutionary theories of human cooperation in a real-world social dilemma: joint liability microfinance, in which groups of borrowers must cooperate to successfully repay a shared loan. We used pre-registered Bayesian multilevel models to estimate meta-analytic associations between loan repayment and proxies of four evolutionary mechanisms proposed to support cooperation: relatedness, reciprocity, partner choice, and punishment. A systematic search of the microfinance literature yielded 73 effect estimates for 11 proxies of evolutionary mechanisms analysed in 11 separate meta-analyses. Punishment-based variables showed the strongest positive meta-analytic associations with loan repayment, with mixed results for other mechanisms. However, estimates varied widely in their certainty, with generally high levels of between-study heterogeneity. Our results provide some evidence for evolutionary mechanisms supporting cooperation in real-world contexts, but also indicate there are non-generalisable findings and/or reproducibility issues in the microfinance literature.
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