Altruistic behaviors like giving up your seat on the subway are examples that go beyond the selfish instincts of evolutionary theory and can be explained by several hypotheses that suggest communication plays an important role in facilitating these behaviors.
When riding the subway, it’s not uncommon to see students giving up their seats to elderly people. On the other hand, there are also students who stare at their smartphones even when they know an elderly person is standing there. We often refer to the former as nice or selfless, and the latter as selfish. Many people may think that the former behavior is natural, but it is not easily understood from the perspective of evolutionary theory. According to the individualistic theory of evolution, all individuals, not just humans, evolve to act selfishly so that they can ensure their own survival and reproduction, i.e., so that they can ensure their own self-interest. Therefore, if the former behavior requires a unilateral sacrifice and there is no benefit in return, then it is not a matter of saying that it is natural for the student to act selfishly, because it may be more personally beneficial for the student to pretend not to know and not to go through the trouble of getting up and going as in the latter case. So, why do people behave altruistically, rather than solely for personal gain, according to evolutionary theory? There are several hypotheses for this, including the kin selection hypothesis, the reciprocity hypothesis, and the group selection hypothesis. In this article, we’ll focus on the communication hypothesis.
Humans use language to express their thoughts and understand the thoughts of others, and we also use communication to bond with others and build trust. However, many scholars, including Gary Miller, consider communication to be nothing more than “cheap chit-chat” because they believe that as long as people have a “betrayal” or “free ride” card, they will play it to their advantage. However, just as “1+1=2” in theory, in reality, two people can create a synergy that is much greater than two, the reality we live in does not always match the theory.
For example, many relationships in modern society have complexities that cannot be explained by simple theories. In our relationships with family, friends, and coworkers, we sometimes value emotional connections more than profit. While these relationships may be inefficient from an evolutionary perspective, they are actually an important foundation of human society. Humans didn’t evolve just to survive; social bonds helped us stabilize larger groups and form more complex social structures. From this perspective, communication is much more than just the exchange of information.
The Commons game by Juan Camilo Cardenas of the University of the Andes in Colombia illustrates that communication is not just “cheap chit-chat”. The game is designed to mirror the situation of the prisoner’s dilemma, showing that it is possible to increase one’s own gain by harvesting a large amount of resources, but eventually everyone’s gain decreases if everyone else does the same. In a team of five, if everyone chooses to harvest 1, the game will give them a gain of 758, but if they choose 8 for their own gain, they will only get 320. He conducted three experiments: no communication and everyone only presents their own harvest, a discussion after 10 games, and a discussion after each of the 10 games. In the first case, the individual’s payoffs were between 4 and 5, higher than the group’s 1 and lower than the individual’s 8. In the second and third cases, the payoffs dropped after communication, and the lower payoffs persisted, especially in the third case where communication continued. The results of this experiment show that communication has the effect of bridging the gap or conflict between individual interests and the interests of the whole.
In addition, communication is not just about aligning interests, but also has a strong impact on human emotions and moral judgment. Through communication, we come to understand the feelings and positions of others, and this understanding promotes altruistic behavior. For example, when we listen to a friend’s difficulties and help them, it’s not just about exchanging information, but about understanding and empathizing with their feelings. These emotional bonds make human society more cohesive.
Here’s a personal example of the effectiveness of communication When I was in high school, my homeroom teacher told me that World Vision was helping a young friend in Kenya, and I researched the number of sponsors. At the time, there were less than 10 students sponsored through official organizations. However, after she showed us pictures and explained the hunger, a funny thing happened later when it was time to fill out our life logs. The teacher smiled and told me that more than 30 students were sponsoring organizations in Korea and abroad. This example of communication in education shows that altruistic behavior can be manifested in one-way communication rather than two-way communication.
However, the specific pathways through which communication affects altruistic behavior are not well established. There are only various hypotheses, one of which is that we learn which behaviors are desirable through communication. For example, in the personal example above, even through one-way communication, a person can learn which behavior is more correct and immediately put it into practice. This hypothesis is mainly true in educational settings.
Furthermore, unlike other hypotheses of altruistic behavior, communication alone has value, even if it is divided into multiple hypotheses. Compared to the kin selection hypothesis, it is very unlikely that there is a kinship between the people in the subway example in the introduction, and it is impossible to explain it, and this can also be seen in personal examples. Or compare it to the reciprocity hypothesis: the student above you on the subway is not necessarily giving you something in return, and the author is not necessarily asking for something from the child he sponsors. The value of the communication hypothesis is that it can explain examples that other hypotheses cannot. Of course, it is limited by the fact that it is unclear whether non-human animals such as ants and vampire bats communicate, but what is clear is that communication is the heartbeat that keeps our society healthy.
