Journal article
Kinship, Family, and Gender Effects in the Ultimatum Game
Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), Vol.19(3), pp.294-309
09/2008
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/113531
PMID: 26181619
Abstract
Kinship and reciprocity are two main predictors of altruism. The ultimatum game has been used to study altruism in many small-scale societies. We used the ultimatum game to examine effects of individuals’ family and kin relations on altruistic behavior in a kin-based horticultural community in rural Dominica. Results show sex-specific effects of kin on ultimatum game play. Average coefficient of relatedness to the village was negatively associated with women’s ultimatum game proposals and had little effect on men’s proposals. Number of brothers in the village was positively associated with men’s ultimatum game proposals and negatively associated with women’s proposals. Similarly, presence of father in the village was associated with higher proposals by men and lower proposals by women. We interpret the effect of brothers on men’s proposals as a consequence of local competition among brothers. We speculate that daughter-biased parental care in this community creates a sense of entitlement among women with brothers, which may explain the inverse relation between number of brothers and women’s ultimatum game proposals. The pattern of results may be consistent with how matrifocality affects cultural models of fairness differently along gender and family lines.
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Details
- Title
- Kinship, Family, and Gender Effects in the Ultimatum Game
- Creators
- Shane Macfarlan - Department of Anthropology Washington State University P.O. Box 44910 Pullman WA 99164-4910 USARobert Quinlan - Department of Anthropology Washington State University P.O. Box 44910 Pullman WA 99164-4910 USA
- Contributors
- Donna Leonetti (Editor)
- Publication Details
- Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), Vol.19(3), pp.294-309
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Publisher
- Springer US; Boston
- Identifiers
- 99900548218901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article