A people’s real-life sharing customs predict their game behavior.

Evidence

Among the whale hunting peoples on the island of Lamalera (Indonesia), 63% of the proposers in the ultimatum game divided the pie equally, and most of those who did not, offered more than half (the mean offer was 58% of the pie). In real life, when a Lamalera whaling crew returns with a large catch, a designated person meticulously divides the prey into pre-designated parts allocated to the harpooner, crewmembers, and others participating in the hunt, as well as to the sailmaker, members of the hunters’ corporate group, and other community members (who make no direct contribution to the hunt). Because the size of the pie in the Lamalera experiments was the equivalent of 10 days’ wages, making an experimental offer in the UG [Ultimatum Game] may have seemed similar to dividing a whale. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 135

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the ‘Grafting & Growth’ infrastructure lens applied to the Lamalera case in the reading purpose—ritualized, pre-designated allocation as cultural infrastructure that the fumi-e analog of apostasy disrupts.
• SHARE: Send to an anthropologist or game-theory colleague—the whale-dividing framing of the UG is a vivid case of ecological validity.
• XREF: connects to: Game offers track whether people see money as shared or personal. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 136; Recasting an economic game as mutual hospitality drops offers to locally appropriate sharing norms. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 161

Related

• Recasting an economic game as mutual hospitality drops offers to locally appropriate sharing norms. (similarity 0.87)
• Game offers track whether people see money as shared or personal. (similarity 0.85)
• Fairness in economic games tracks perceived entitlement rather than raw contribution. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Game offers track whether people see money as shared or personal. #expands (0.85) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 136