Moral behavior shifts with the market supply and demand of cooperative partners

Evidence

From a theoretical perspective, the situational plasticity of individual moral behavior is not surprising – indeed, we contend that it is exactly what is predicted by market models of partner choice for mutualism. As Baumard et al.’s own analogies with biological markets indicate, the behavior of individual actors in a market reflects the effects of supply and demand on pricing. Consider first the simplest case, in which all mutualism is dyadic, and cooperativeness is a binary trait. Here, market dynamics do not operate, as all (or virtually all) prospective cooperators eventually find partners. However, if prospective partners vary in quality, then market dynamics arise: Vying to pair with the best partners, prospective cooperators will escalate their prosociality in order to compete with their rivals for limited slots. This situation is exacerbated if some or all of the most profitable mutualisms involve groups of actors rather than dyads, as this means that large numbers of unattached actors can accumulate (rather than simply pairing off, as occurs under dyadic scenarios). When the supply of prospective cooperators is greater than the number of open slots in cooperative ventures, the prospective cooperators can be expected to advertise that they have lowered their expected wages by displaying a willingness to engage in more costly prosocial behavior. Conversely, when the supply of prospective cooperators is lower than the number of open slots in cooperative ventures, the prospective cooperators can be expected to display a reduced willingness to engage in costly prosociality. … The result is that there are multiple stable equilibria with regard to prevailing levels of cooperation, a pattern evident even on relatively small geographical scales — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 394

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the reader’s reading purpose on Big God mechanisms: this supply-demand moral market explains why fumi-e apostasy rituals would be so destabilizing — removing a partner from a cooperative market through visible renunciation. — connects to: Morality evolved as a propensity for fair cost-benefit sharing among cooperators. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 266; Morality evolved because fair partners were preferred in cooperative interactions — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 4; Cooperative behavior is partly motivated by reputation concerns. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 311 (+5 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that prosociality is priced like labor wages (‘lowered their expected wages’) and adjusts to market slack is a paradigm-shifting reframing of moral emotion as arbitrage signal rather than fixed virtue.

Related

• Morality evolved because fair partners were preferred in cooperative interactions (similarity 0.87)
• Market models explain why moral standards vary across contexts, groups, and individuals. (similarity 0.86)
• Morality evolved as a propensity for fair cost-benefit sharing among cooperators. (similarity 0.84)
• Morality evolves from individual partner-choice competition, not group selection. (similarity 0.82)
• Fairness evolved as a psychological device because outside market options constrain benefit distribution. (similarity 0.82)
• Competition for partners drives costly reputation-building cooperation. (similarity 0.82)
• Moral conduct serves as a costly signal that pays in partner selection. (similarity 0.82)
• Moral norms differ by relationship type, not by one universal strategy. (similarity 0.81)
• A disposition to fairness can evolve even when unshared, unlike a disposition to cooperate. (similarity 0.81)
• Meritocratic fairness norms evolved as adaptations to partner-choice markets (similarity 0.81)
• Partner selection produces genuine moral feelings, not just narrow self-interested cooperation. (similarity 0.81)
• A genuine moral sense evolved to secure reputation as a cooperator (similarity 0.80)
• Fairness evolves from partner choice, not partner control (similarity 0.80)
• Morality evolves in two steps, from selfish reciprocity to intrinsic fairness. (similarity 0.80)
• Morality may have evolved via partner choice over partner control (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Morality evolved as a propensity for fair cost-benefit sharing among cooperators. #expands (0.85) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 266
• Morality evolved because fair partners were preferred in cooperative interactions #corroborates (0.80) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 4
• Cooperative behavior is partly motivated by reputation concerns. #expands (0.75) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 311