The eusocial species hypothesis explains that groups of people with similar dispositions come together and interact to promote and maintain cooperative behavior. While this contributes to the evolution of altruistic behavior, it has limitations in explaining the lack of diversity and creativity and altruistic behavior of entire societies.
According to a game theory called the prisoner’s dilemma, humans should always betray others in order to maximize their own self-interest. However, this does not always happen, and contrary to what economists fear, there are certainly people in the world who engage in altruistic or cooperative behavior at their own detriment for the sake of others. Dr. Jung Kyu Choi, author of The Emergence of the Altruism Gene, offers a number of hypotheses about how the various altruistic behaviors that occur in the human world evolved and have been maintained. I’d like to explain one of them, the eusocial species hypothesis.
There are many people in the world with vastly different values, including political views, religion, and so on, and they form groups and interact with others who are similarly inclined. Similarly, there are people in the world who prefer cooperative strategies, where they act altruistically, or treacherous strategies, where they look out for their own interests. Cooperative behavior can be maintained, at least in part, if there is a tendency for people to gather and interact with others who use the same strategy. This is known as the herd mentality hypothesis. For example, if a society has social norms that punish behavior that undermines the bonds of a group, it can increase the number of altruistic people who remain by expelling those who violate those norms. This process would allow the society to become, at least in part, “eusocial,” which would create a favorable environment for the evolution of cooperative or altruistic behavior.
There are many real-life examples of the coevolutionary hypothesis. For example, if a community of green activists forms, they are more likely to be supportive of each other and more likely to take action to protect the environment. These groups also provide a constant influx of new participants, which fosters their altruistic behavior.
This is also true in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Players who choose a cooperative strategy will earn the highest payoffs when they meet and play with players who choose the same strategy as them, while players who choose a treacherous strategy will earn the lowest payoffs when they meet and play with players who choose the same strategy as them. So if our society tends to have cooperative people interacting with cooperative people and selfish people interacting with selfish people, it will be better for altruistic behavior to be maintained and evolve over time.
However, to the extent that eusociality contributes to the evolution of altruistic behavior, we can predict some limitations. In an age where thinking differently, creativity, and diversity are valued, a group of like-minded individuals will be limited in the quality and diversity of their output, and therefore in the economic benefits or outcomes they can produce. Second, homogeneous individuals will be less efficient in terms of the division of labor. The division of labor involves different people taking on different roles to produce a certain outcome, and if people with similar traits are doing different things, it will be harder for them to be economically effective than a heterogeneous group. In other words, while homophily can clearly benefit the continuation and development of altruism by bringing together people with similar coping strategies, there are limits to the benefits of diversity that can be gained from heterophily.
Furthermore, while the homophily hypothesis is useful for explaining altruistic behavior within a group, it falls short of fully explaining altruistic behavior in an entire society. For example, in societies where selfish people are in the majority, altruistic people run the risk of being isolated or excluded, which can reduce the level of cooperative behavior in the society as a whole. Therefore, the eusocial species hypothesis should be combined with other theories to provide a more comprehensive explanation.
However, it can be argued that the eugenics theory compensates for the shortcomings of kin selection and recurrence-reciprocity theories. Kin selection, which explains altruistic behavior in groups of thousands or tens of thousands of people to increase the benefit of groups that share the same genes, has difficulty explaining altruistic behavior in groups of thousands or tens of thousands of people, and reciprocal reciprocity, which explains cooperative behavior in groups with close social ties, has difficulty explaining altruistic behavior in large groups that do not have close ties. Therefore, while the eusocial theory alone does not explain why altruistic behavior has survived, it represents a new phase in the evolution of human nature in that it can compensate for the shortcomings of many previously accepted hypotheses.
In conclusion, the eusocial species hypothesis is one of the most important theories to explain the evolution of altruistic behavior in human society. The hypothesis, which states that groups of people with similar dispositions can come together and interact to promote and sustain cooperative behavior, may contribute to the sustainability of altruistic behavior in a variety of contexts. However, it is important to recognize its limitations and seek a more comprehensive and accurate explanation through an integrated approach with other theories. The evolution and maintenance of altruistic behavior is a complex and multifaceted issue that cannot be explained by a single theory, and requires a comprehensive understanding that takes into account multiple perspectives and theories.
