Wesley Allen-Arave
Human Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences
Department of Anthropology
University of New Mexico
Research Interests: Evolution of altruism, cooperation within social networks, behavioral ecology, hunter-gatherers, kin selection theory.
My research explores the influence of social networks and reputations on altruistic displays and cooperative behaviors across traditional and industrialized societies. This research has encompassed fieldwork in Paraguay among the Ache, analyses of altruistic behaviors in emergency situations, and application of evolutionary theory to the contemporary issue of public goods provisioning in our own society.
In Paraguay, I collected ethnographic data with M. Gurven that resulted in collaborative publications providing a quantitative description of Ache reservation food transfers. This work has explored how cultural practices provide mechanisms to buffer individuals from illnesses. Individuals in Ache society who earn reputations as generous food providers receive more aid than “stingy” individuals when illness necessitates provisioning. I have gone on to use this data to reveal that enhancing the likelihood of reciprocation is a better candidate for the adaptive function of food sharing with kin than is nepotistic investment in indirect fitness benefits. Additionally, we amassed over 400 hours of observational household visitation data during the field period that will form the basis of upcoming analyses to explore how food transfers fit into the larger picture of human sociality.
In collaboration with J. Boone, I am working on a project concerning altruism in the Titanic disaster of 1912. This work explores 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.
With the support of the National Science Foundation, I am also conducting research on the contemporary issue of public goods provisioning in our own society. This research evaluates the explanatory power of evolutionary-minded theoretical models that seek to account for unreciprocated giving to non-kin through reputational effects. These theoretical models reason that an individual benefits from generosity by being viewed as 1) a beneficent partner for future exchanges of favors, 2) someone who commands social prestige and access to resources, or 3) some combination of these. While these theoretical models have provided popular explanations for seemingly unreciprocated food provisioning in small-scale societies, the empirical work addressing these theories has considered cases of generosity where we can never completely rule out direct repayment because donors and recipients are known to each other and continue to interact. The case of charitable donations in our own society provides a more appropriate test case for these theories by offering a more unambiguous instance of altruism that cannot be accounted for by direct reciprocation.