There is strong evidence that people exploit their bargaining power in competitivemarkets butnot inbilateral bargainingsituations. Thereisalsostrong evidence that people exploit free-riding opportunities in voluntary cooperation games. Yet, when they are given the opportunity to punish free riders, stable cooperation is maintained, although punishment is costly for those who punish. This paper asks whether there is a simple common principle that can explain this puzzling evidence. We show that if some people care about equity the puzzles can be resolved. It turns out that the economic environment determines whether the fair types or the selesh types dominate equilibrium behavior.

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A theory of fairness, competition and cooperation

There is strong evidence that people exploit their bargaining power in competitive markets but not in bilateral bargaining situations. There is also strong evidence that people exploit free-riding opportunities in voluntary cooperation games. Yet, when they are given the opportunity to punish free riders, stable cooperation is maintained although punishment is costly for those who punish. This paper asks whether there is a simple common principle that can explain this puzzling evidence. We show that if a fraction of the people exhibits inequality aversion the puzzles can be resolved.

/pdf/a-theory-of-fairness-competition-and-cooperation-445axsa22c.pdf

A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation

/pdf/a-class-of-decomposable-poverty-measures-2gmhq6tdpo.pdf

A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures

We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with oth- ers and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The develop- mental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition.

/pdf/understanding-and-sharing-intentions-the-origins-of-cultural-4ndpnm3ov3.pdf

Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition

Qualitative researchers rely — implicitly or explicitly — on a variety of understandings and corresponding types of validity in the process of describing, interpreting, and explaining phenomena of ...

Understanding and Validity in Qualitative Research

Relative Deprivation and Social Justice

This second of three volumes sets out a general account of the structure and evolution of human societies. The author argues first that societies are to be defined as sets of roles whose incumbents are competitors for access to, or control of, the means of production, persuasion and coercion; and second, that the process by which societies evolve is one of competitive selection of the practices by which roles are defined analagous, but not reducible, to natural selection. He illustrates and tests these theses with evidence drawn from the whole range of societies documented in the historical and ethnographic record. The result is an original, powerful and far-reaching reformulation of evolutionary sociological theory which will make it possible to do for the classification and analysis of societies what Darwin and his successors have done for the classification and analysis of species.

A Treatise on Social Theory

Prefaces 1. The nature of social science 2. The emergence of political sociology 3. Karl Marx and Max Weber 4. Elites and oligarchies 5. Voters and parties 6. Methods, models and theories 7. Class, status and political conflict 8. Social science and political theory Notes Index.

Social science and political theory

Preface Prologue. The Darwinian legacy 1. The neo-Darwinian paradigm 2. Natural selection and evoked behaviour 3. Cultural selection and acquired behaviour 4. Social selection and imposed behaviour 5. Selectionist theory as narrative history Epilogue. Sociology in a post-Darwinian world.

The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection

Unique in bringing an interdisciplinary approach to one of the most exciting areas of current behavioural science research, these papers are by distinguished researchers from Europe and the United States at the forefront of their respective disciplines, whether biologists, primatologists, archaeologists, psychologists, linguists, or anthropologists.

W. G. Runciman

Papers

Relative Deprivation and Social Justice

A Treatise on Social Theory

Social science and political theory

The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection

Evolution of Social Behaviour Patterns in Primates and Man: A Joint Discussion Meeting of the Royal Society and the British Academy