People are either altruistic or selfish depending on their cooperative attitudes, and while altruistic behavior seems to sacrifice self-interest, it has survived by shaping the common good due to the principle of eusociality. In this process, social diversity allows altruistic and selfish tendencies to coexist.
Although it is difficult to divide people into two groups based on a single criterion, we can divide people into cooperative and uncooperative people based on their attitude toward cooperation. In this case, cooperative and uncooperative people can be described as altruistic and selfish, respectively. In general, altruistic behavior is defined as looking out for the interests of others over your own. This seems like a detriment to the individual providing the altruistic behavior, and it is. From an evolutionary perspective, this loss would imply the extinction of the altruistic behavior provider, but this is not the case. Why has altruism survived? To answer this question, we will first look at eusociality and then at the relationship between eusociality and the survival of altruism.
The term “eusociality” refers to the gathering and meeting of like-minded individuals. If you look at the friends you’ve spent a lot of time with in school, it’s not hard to find people who have similar personalities, ideas, and hobbies to you, and this is an example of eusociality. It’s not just in friendships and romantic relationships, but also in work and social life. People instinctively prefer to associate with people who have similar personalities to their own, and it’s a natural part of human society.
But what does this common lionization have to do with surviving altruistic behavior? There are many different types of encounters that occur in society, but if we consider them transactions, an altruistic person will get the most out of them when they meet an altruistic person. On the other hand, a selfish person will get the lowest payoff from meeting a selfish person. As a result, we would naturally want to do business with altruistic people and avoid doing business with selfish people. However, our society has a norm or tendency to isolate selfish people from the group in order to maintain the group. For example, people who commit fraud for their own benefit will go to jail, and people who only look out for their own interests in group activities will be loners. As a result, altruistic people are more likely to do business with altruistic people and contribute to a more cooperative atmosphere in society. Selfish people are also less likely to be chosen by altruistic people, so they are relatively more likely to deal with other selfish people. As a result, we tend to surround ourselves with people who are similar to us again, which leads to “eusocialization”. This process of speciation helps to create a public good, and individuals who give up something to act altruistically can be rewarded for their selfishness through the public good.
But here again, an evolutionary perspective raises a question. If cooperation among altruistic individuals yields the best outcomes, why do selfish individuals still exist? This provides a clue that societies made up entirely of altruistic people have weaknesses. It’s called diversity. Groups of altruistic people tend to be more monotonous in their personalities and characteristics than groups with a healthy mix of altruistic and selfish people. But we know from research that groups with some diversity, whether it’s in terms of gender or culture, are more likely to thrive than homogeneous groups. The process of bringing together people with different backgrounds and experiences to generate new ideas and innovations plays an important role in the continued development of society. After all, there are limits to a society made up entirely of altruistic people, which is why we are as diverse as we are.
Thus, we can see that speciation occurs when altruistic and selfish individuals seek the highest possible reward from each other, and the answer to the question of why altruistic individuals who are willing to give up their own interests survive can be found in the public good that results from speciation. On the other hand, we also realized that while eusociality can help create public goods, it can also be damaging in excess, leading to the loss of diversity. In the process, we also gained an evolutionary perspective on why altruistic and selfish individuals coexist in society today. This perspective provides us with important insights into understanding why different types of people exist in society and how they interact and coexist with each other.
