The evolution of reciprocity in sizable human groups.
The scale and complexity of human cooperation is an important and unresolved evolutionary puzzle. This article uses the finitely repeated n person Prisoners' Dilemma game to illustrate how sapience can greatly enhance group-selection effects and lead to the evolutionary stability of cooperation in large groups. This affords a simple and direct explanation of the human "exception".
Rothschild
Casey G
CG
Department of Economics, Middlebury College, VT 05753, USA. caseyr@mit.edu