• Professional interests and memberships

    portrait by Victor Maritsas

    Welcome!

    I am an evolutionary anthropologist interested in advancing our understanding of human behavior. I was drawn to anthropology by my deep regard for the range and diversity of ways that people live and make sense of the world around them. My research is rooted in evolutionary theory and the powerful framework it provides for understanding the world we live in.

     

    My research focuses on cooperative behaviors, i.e. helping, giving, and sharing. To increase our understanding of the full sweep of human cooperation, I study a host of naturally occurring (i.e. “real world”) cooperative behaviors, including food sharing in a traditional small-scale subsistence society, heroic responses to historical emergencies, and charitable giving in the large-scale industrialized society that I call home.

    Professional memberships

    I am an active member of both the Evolutionary Anthropology Society and the Society for Anthropological Sciences. I have served the Evolutionary Anthropology Society (EAS) as a member of the Annual Awards Selection Committee multiple times and have organized EAS roundtabe discussions on the roles of science and advocacy in evolutionary anthropology, the origins of human cooperation, and strategies to promote skills training and professional opportunities to expand the influence of anthropological perspectives beyond academia. I formerly served as an elected member of the Society for Anthropological Sciences' Executive Board.

  • Research projects and publications

    Ache reservation food sharing

    Micheal Gurven and I, with the logistical support of Kim Hill and Ana Magdaleena Hurtado, collected systematic observational data on food transfers and household visitations of Ache forager-horticulturists in Paraguay. The Ache are well known for their extensive band-wide sharing of food when on extended foraging treks in the forest. Our more recent work examined food sharing on the reservation where the Ache experience more predictable (though less diverse) food sources, larger group sizes, and increased opportunities for privacy. Publications from this work, include:

     

    Reciprocal altruism, rather than kin selection, maintains nepotistic food transfers on an Ache reservation

    W Allen-Arave, M Gurven, K Hill

    Evolution and Human Behavior 29 (5), 305-318

     

    Reservation food sharing among the Ache of Paraguay

    M Gurven, W Allen-Arave, K Hill, AM Hurtado

    Human Nature 12 (4), 273-297
     
    "It's a wonderful life": Signaling generosity among the Ache of Paraguay
    M Gurven, W Allen-Arave, K Hill, M Hurtado
    Evolution and Human Behavior 21 (4), 263-282
     

    This research also garnered me the Evolutionary Anthropology Society's inaugural Best Student Investigator Award and formed the basis of my participation in an American Anthropological Association Executive Program Committee Invited Session on ethnographic methods.

     

     

    Charitable giving

    With funding from the National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Program, I conducted structured face-to-face interviews with members of over 500 households to collect measures of household charitable giving patterns and social support networks. I have presented findings from this research at meetings of the American Anthropological Association (Invited Session), the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (invited speaker), the Society for Anthropological Sciences, and the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Additionally, findings from this research have appeared in an article on kindness and generosity in New Scientist. Watch for upcoming publications of this research to include:

     

    Unreciprocated generosity? Circuitous reciprocity and the social context of charitable giving

    W Allen-Arave

     

    Showing you care: The role of social reputation and social relationships in charitable giving decision-making

    W Allen-Arave

     

    Do charitable donations buy friends? Generosity, reputation, and partner choice in social support networks

    W Allen-Arave

    Heroism and helping

    I have assisted James L. Boone in an investigation of the impact of social class and reputation on the extreme altruism of men who adhered to the "women and children first" honor code in the Titanic disaster of 1912. Results from this research have been presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, the annual meeting of the Human Evolution and Behavior Society, and at the University of Vienna.