This article discusses the various hypotheses that have been proposed to explain altruistic behavior, particularly the eusocial species hypothesis, and compares the limitations of the different hypotheses.
Altruistic behavior is defined as the act of helping others, even at the risk of harm to oneself. Common sense tells us that it is not easy to understand why anyone would voluntarily do something that is detrimental to themselves. Scholars have done a lot of research to explain this behavior and have come up with a number of hypotheses. One of the most compelling is the eudaemonic hypothesis, which we’ll discuss below. First, we’ll consider what theories existed before the mammalian hypothesis and what their limitations were. Then we’ll look at how the euploidy hypothesis, which arose to overcome those limitations, explains them instead.
One hypothesis that gained a lot of support early on was the kin selection hypothesis. The kin selection hypothesis explains that altruistic behavior emerges when people who are related to each other help and protect individuals with whom they share genes. In fact, helping each other is something that families have often done throughout history. It’s not uncommon to see a family member in trouble and turn a blind eye. For example, if a younger sibling has a failed business and is deeply in debt, they will help him or her even if they know it will be to their detriment. The kin selection hypothesis is a good explanation for altruistic behavior in kinship relationships. However, it has limitations in that it does not explain non-kinship relationships. In modern society, we interact with a wide variety of people who are not related to us. The kin selection hypothesis is not sufficient to explain these diverse relationships.
This is where the repetition-reciprocity hypothesis comes in. It states that altruistic behavior emerges because of repeated interactions between people. This is a hypothesis that can be applied to more general relationships than kinship. This hypothesis is based on human rationality: if I help someone else, they will try to help me, and vice versa. This has the advantage that it can easily explain altruistic behavior in general relationships, even if there is no familial tie like in blood relations. However, this hypothesis is only true if there is constant interaction within a small group. In reality, altruistic behavior can also be found in large groups where people don’t interact repeatedly.
This is where the eusociality hypothesis comes in. It states that people tend to cluster together, whether voluntarily or not, primarily with similar groups. By similarity, we’re not talking about physical characteristics, but mental ones: people with similar ideas tend to cluster together. In fact, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond has shown in his research that spouses have a very high ideological correlation. So selfish people tend to form groups with other selfish people, and altruistic people tend to form groups with other altruistic people. This clustering of altruistic people allows altruistic behavior to occur even in large groups where sustained interactions are unlikely to occur. The eusociality hypothesis is very useful because it provides a mechanism for altruistic behavior to persist in large societies.
Since our societies are typically large groups, the eusocial hypothesis is a good fit to explain altruistic behavior. However, there are clear limitations to the eusocial hypothesis. The broader the boundaries of a group, the more likely it is that selfish and altruistic individuals will be mixed together. In this case, the distinction between selfish and altruistic groups becomes meaningless. Furthermore, it dichotomizes human beings into selfish and altruistic individuals, when in reality, most people are a mixture of both traits. Therefore, if the metazoan hypothesis were to clarify the size of the groups and use a polytomous rather than a simple dichotomy, it would be a better theory to explain the phenomenon.
In conclusion, altruistic behavior plays an important role in human society. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this behavior, and each provides a useful explanation in a particular context. However, to fully explain altruistic behavior, it is necessary to combine the strengths of different theories and recognize the limitations of each theory. The eusocial species hypothesis is part of this effort and makes an important contribution to understanding altruistic behavior in large societies. The study of altruistic behavior should continue in the future, so that we can gain a deeper understanding of the complexity and diversity of human societies.
