Synonyms
Definitions
Reputation is used to mean a publicly available index of past behavior.
Altruism is used to mean a behavior that is costly to the individual and benefits another individual or group of individuals. Here it is taken to include behaviors that have some cost, but which may have a net benefit due to the responses of others.
Introduction
Why might individuals help others? Evolutionary psychologists seek adaptive answers to this question by investigating how helpers get something back. This becomes most challenging when individuals are not kin and do not get a return through direct reciprocation. One way in which helping might actually be self-interested is if others learn about the helpful behavior and in consequence act preferentially toward you. Thus it may pay to care about reputation – about behavior not just with a partner but in a social setting where others may have access to some index of past behavior. It is apparent that people act more...
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References
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Roberts, G. (2016). Reputation and Altruism. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1936-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1936-1
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