In some species of insects males transfer a gift to females during courtship or copulation. In the dance flies these nuptial gifts vary from nutritious prey items to inedible tokens such as a leaf, stone, or silk balloon. Nuptial gifts in dance flies are presumed to increase male mating success. We examined the strength and form of sexual selection on male Rhamphomyia sulcata, an empidid in whi...

We developed a gift-giving task requiring children to identify their mother's desire, when her desire differed from theirs. We found a developmental change: 3- and 4-year-olds performed more poorly than 5-year-olds (Experiment 1). A modified version of this task (Experiment 2) revealed that 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds whose desires had been fulfilled chose an appropriate gift for their mothers sign...

We develop a model of manager-employee relationships where employees care more for their manager when they are more convinced that their manager cares for them. Managers can signal their altruistic feelings towards their employees in two ways: by offering a generous wage and by giving attention. Contrary to the traditional gift-exchange hypothesis, we show that altruistic managers may offer low...

Rural areas of developing countries often lack effective legal enforcement. However, villagers who know each other well and interact repeatedly may use implicit contracts to minimize crime. I construct a dynamic limited-commitment model, in which a thief cannot credibly commit to forego stealing from his fellow villagers, but may be induced to limit his stealing by the promise of future gifts f...

Let β be the ratio of benefit to cost of an altruistic act controlling for trembles. In “Evolution and Information in a Gift Giving Game” [3] the stochastically stable strategy is found if β < 2 or β > 4. In this note the stochastically stable strategy is found for the intermediary range and the speed of evolution is bounded. It is shown that if β ≤ 3 then players are selfish in the long run, i...

Evolutionary game theory focuses on the fitness differences between simple discrete or probabilistic strategies to explain the evolution of particular decision-making behavior within strategic situations. Although this approach has provided substantial insights into the presence of fairness or generosity in gift-giving games, it does not fully resolve the question of which cognitive mechanisms ...

Gifts that support a worthy cause (i.e., ‘‘gifts that give twice’’), such as a charitable donation in the recipient’s name, have become increasingly popular. Recipients generally enjoy the idea of these gifts, which not only benefit others in need but also make individuals feel good about themselves. But do givers accurately predict appreciation of these types of gifts? Across three studies, we...

Three double blind treatments of a US$ 10 dictator game are used to examine the role of anonymity and perceptions of anonymity in pro-social behavior. One treatment has dictators viewing pictures of recipients, the second has recipients receiving pictures of dictators and the third is a pictureless control. In each treatment, more than 50 percent of dictators give US$ 0. For those dictators who...