از دست دادن برای همیشه: نوع دوستی و پاسخ به وظیفه انتخاب واسن

The Wason selection task, a standard test of conditional reasoning, has featured prominently in experimental studies of cognitive adaptations for cooperation. The most prominent of these is Cosmides' investigations of cheater detection on social contract versions of the Wason selection task [Cognition 31 (1989) 187–276]. Subsequent to Cosmides' initial investigations, several researchers [Evol Hum Behav 21 (200) 25–37; Manage Decis Econ 19 (1998) 467–480; J Genet Psychol 163 (2002) 425–444; Evol Hum Behav 27 (2006) 366–380] have argued that people also are competent at detecting altruism on the Wason selection task, suggesting that there is nothing privileged about the detection of cheaters. However, an analysis of the selection tasks on which these claims are based suggests that participants may have solved these altruism-detection tasks correctly because the scenarios explicitly or implicitly provide the answer to the task in the scenario [Evol Hum Behav 21 (200) 25–37; Manage Decis Econ 19 (1998) 467–480; J Genet Psychol 163 (2002) 425–444], or due to confounds in the cheater-detection tasks leading to the (misleading) appearance of enhanced altruist-detection performance [Evol Hum Behav 27 (2006) 366–380]. We tested our conjecture by giving participants selection tasks with and without the answer embedded in the scenario. Performance dropped significantly on the altruism-detection tasks when the embedded answers were removed, whereas performance on cheater-detection versions was unaffected by the manipulation. A reanalysis of the findings of Oda et al. suggested that participants performed significantly worse on their altruism-detection problems than their cheater-detection problems — a finding that we replicate after removing confounds from the cheater-detection tasks of Oda et al. The results reaffirm the specificity of cheater-detection.

One of the most widely discussed and controversial findings in evolutionary psychology is Cosmides' (1989) demonstration of elevated levels of performance on cheater-detection versions of the Wason selection task in support of the proposal that humans possess a dedicated “look for cheater” mechanism. Several evolutionarily minded theorists have argued that this focus is too narrow and that people ought likewise to be able to detect altruists in reciprocal exchanges and have purportedly demonstrated such an ability (Brown and Moore, 2000, Evans and Chang, 1998, Lawson, 2002 and Oda et al., 2006). We provide arguments and experimental evidence against an altruist-detection mechanism. 1. Altruism vs. cooperation Before proceeding further, it is important to clarify that what previous theorists have proposed is not that one can detect cooperators, but that one can detect altruists. Where a cooperator is someone who fulfills his or her obligations in a reciprocal exchange, an altruist is someone who acts in a supererogatory manner, exceeding what is required. This can be illustrated by considering behavior with respect to social contract rules of the form, “If you take the benefit, then you must pay the cost.” Typically, the cost is a benefit granted to some other party. Hence, a cheater is someone who accepts the benefit and does not pay the cost, a cooperator is someone who accepts the benefit and pays the cost, and an altruist is someone who does not accept the benefit but pays the cost. There may, of course, be other ways of defining altruism, but the preceding analysis is the one operationally adopted by all studies of altruist detection on the Wason selection task. We stress that our analysis only applies to altruist detection and should not be taken to minimize the importance of tracking cooperation. Even if there are reasons for doubting the existence of altruism detection, there might all the same be sound reasons for believing that humans track cooperation and assess cooperative intent.