Comparative economics: how studying other primates helps us better understand the evolution of our own economic decision making

The origins of evolutionary games are rooted in both economics and animal behaviour, but economics has, until recently, focused primarily on humans. Although historically, specific games were used in targeted circumstances with non-human species (i.e. the Prisoner's Dilemma), experimental econo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences 2023-05, Vol.378 (1876), p.20210497-20210497
Main Authors: Brosnan, Sarah F, Wilson, Bart J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Biological Evolution
Cooperative Behavior
Decision Making
Game Theory
Humans
Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Primates
Prisoner Dilemma
Review
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Summary:The origins of evolutionary games are rooted in both economics and animal behaviour, but economics has, until recently, focused primarily on humans. Although historically, specific games were used in targeted circumstances with non-human species (i.e. the Prisoner's Dilemma), experimental economics has been increasingly recognized as a valuable method for directly comparing both the outcomes of economic decisions and their underlying mechanisms across species, particularly in comparison with humans, thanks to the structured procedures that allow for them to be instantiated across a variety of animals. So far, results in non-human primates suggest that even when outcomes are shared, underlying proximate mechanisms can vary substantially. Intriguingly, in some contexts non-human primates more easily find a Nash equilibrium than do humans, possibly owing to their greater willingness to explore the parameter space, but humans excel at more complex outcomes, such as alternating between two Nash equilibria, even when deprived of language or instruction, suggesting potential mechanisms that humans have evolved to allow us to solve complex social problems. We consider what these results suggest about the evolution of economic decision-making and suggest future directions, in particular the need to expand taxonomic diversity, to expand this promising approach. This article is part of the theme issue 'Half a century of evolutionary games: a synthesis of theory, application and future directions'.
ISSN:0962-8436
1471-2970
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2021.0497