Narrow Results

We define an asset exchange model by adding the kickback rate to the trade, and discuss the Gini index with different kickback rates. It is found that for every kickback rate, the related Gini index tends to be steady; thus, the kickback rate — Gini index curve may be obtained. Furthermore, it is shown that the Gini index decreases when the kickback rate increases, so that the fair degree of social wealth distribution gets better. The Gini index reaches a minimum when the kickback rate is 0.58, and then it increases, as the accretion of the kickback rate destroys the fair degree of social wealth distribution. However, in all situations, the Gini index with kickback rate is less than the one without kickback. This means that the introduction of kickback rate is favorable to the raising of the fair degree of wealth distribution. We also define a moral index similar to the Gini index to weigh the differences of social moral level, and find that the differences of social moral level increase with time for the model with kickback rate.

In this paper, we attempt to shed light on whether Japanese households are rational or if their behavior is influenced by culture and social norms by examining their saving and bequest behavior. To summarize our main findings, we find that Japan’s household saving rate showed great volatility, was often low and even negative and was high only during the 25-year period from around 1960 until the mid-1980s (if we exclude the war years) and that we can explain the high level of, and trends over time in, Japan’s household saving rate via various socioeconomic and policy variables. This seems to suggest that the Japanese are not a saving-loving people and that their saving behavior is not governed by culture and social norms. Moreover, the bequest behavior of the Japanese suggests that they are less altruistic toward their children and less reliant on their children than other peoples, suggesting that the alleged social norm of strong family ties in Japan is largely a myth, and that the Japanese do not appear to be appreciably more concerned about the continuation of the family line or the family business than other peoples, suggesting that the influence of the “ie” (family) system is apparently not so pervasive either. However, we argue that these findings do not necessarily mean that culture and social norms do not matter.

In this work, we present a simulation study drawn upon a famous ethological example: food-sharing habit of vampire bats in Central America. A norm of reciprocity is introduced when agents are expected to exhibit a cooperative behavior under serious environmental strictures (infrequent but lethal food scarcity). We compare different agents' architectures (with different levels of cognitive complexity) in the evolution of food-sharing habit and we analyze their performances against the presence of cheaters in the population. The experiments are aimed at studying the role of cognitive mediators (i.e. goals) in spreading altruism, described as a purposeful action.

The central subject of this paper is the relation between the macro-level of the Society and the micro-level of its individuals. In complex real-life systems, this relationship is not trivial and even the result at the macro-level can be counter-intuitive. One of the first models that highlights this is the Sakoda and Schelling’s model of spatial segregation where a person uses a selfish rule to decide whether or not to leave his current place; on the basis of the ratio of “compatible” agents in the neighborhood of each individual, simulations have shown that tolerant agents group together beyond what their own tolerance imposes. This paper compares the macro-behavior arising from either selfish or altruist micro-motives; for this purpose, we propose agent-based computational models based, respectively, on selfishness, altruism and a mixture of both. Computational simulations show that (i) in a totally altruistic population, a vast majority becomes satisfied as if the agents were themselves selfish and end up spatially segregated; (ii) altruist micro-motives allow to reduce both the micro-macro gap and the segregation phenomenon; (iii) in a mixed population, the macro-effect depends both on the respective weight of each micro-motives and the allocation strategy.

Animal behavior is often altruistic. In the frame of the theory of natural selection, altruism can only exist under specific conditions like kin selection or reciprocal cooperation. We show that reciprocal cooperation, which is generally invoked to explain non-kin altruism, requires very restrictive conditions to be stable. Some of these conditions are not met in many cases of altruism observed in nature. In search of another explanation of non-kin altruism, we consider Zahavis's theory of prestige. We extend it to propose a "political" model of altruism. We give evidence showing that non-kin altruism can evolve in the context of inter-subgroup competition. Under such circumstances, altruistic behavior can be used by individuals to advertise their quality as efficient coalition members. In this model, only abilities which positively correlate with the subgroup success can evolve into altruistic behaviors.

We design a decision-making scenario experiment on Facebook to measure subjects’ altruism and trust towards attendees of religious service, a fitness class and a local music performance. Secular and religious subjects alike display significantly more altruism and trust towards the synagogue attendees than attendees of the other two non-religious venues. We also find that secular subjects are just as altruistic towards synagogue and prayer group attendees as religious subjects are. These findings support recent theories that emphasize the pivotal role of religious context in arousing high levels of prosociality.

This paper offers a theory of decentralised, non-state-sponsored terrorism that is characteristic of contemporary reality, and that explains the rise of homegrown terrorism. We argue that the sense of social identity based on religion or shared history is a prime motivator of non-strategic terrorist activities, and we investigate its consequences and implications for defence against terrorism. Terrorist responses to perceived affronts to identity increase with altruism towards in-groups and with endogenous intensity of hate towards out-groups. We show that, while out-group spite is the more essential feature of identity pertinent to decentralised terrorism, the intensity of terrorist actions is magnified by in-group altruism because it plays an important role in overcoming the potential free-riding of terrorists. This makes individual terrorist activities possible without coordination. We use our formulation to provide an alternative explanation for why counterterrorism measures intended to deter and manage terrorism often fail, and frequently can have a backlash effect of actually increasing it. Our results point to the need for Western democracies to reformulate their foreign policies to take account of the role these policies play in instigating and managing contemporary terrorism.

Animal behavior is often altruistic. In the frame of the theory of natural selection, altruism can only exist under specific conditions like kin selection or reciprocal cooperation. We show that reciprocal cooperation, which is generally invoked to explain non-kin altruism, requires very restrictive conditions to be stable. Some of these conditions are not met in many cases of altruism observed in nature. In search of another explanation of non-kin altruism, we consider Zahavis's theory of prestige. We extend it to propose a “political” model of altruism. We give evidence showing that non-kin altruism can evolve in the context of inter-subgroup competition. Under such circumstances, altruistic behavior can be used by individuals to advertise their quality as efficient coalition members. In this model, only abilities which positively correlate with the subgroup success can evolve into altruistic behaviors.

Unhealthy nuclear intentions of "rogue states" have challenged policy decision-makers for many decades. This paper suggests a new computationally intelligent approach based on the DiNI (Discerning Nuclear Intentions) Model to support policy decision-making in a complex, non-linear manner. DiNI is inspired from the well-validated theme of socio-biological evolution of altruistic behavior and works on a NetLogo platform. By changing the model parameter values in DiNI, policy makers can objectively assess i) the nuclear intentions of states based on the current policy situation ii) the effectiveness of new policy instruments e.g., incentive packages on the nuclear intentions of suspect states. Simulation conducted on DiNI using hypothetical data demonstrates that DiNI can indeed be used to proactively inform policy decision-makers on unhealthy nuclear intentions of suspect nation states.