Competitive Altruism, Mentalizing, and Signaling

摘要

One explanation of altruism is that it arises from "mentalizing," the process of understanding the mental states of others. Another is based on sexual selection: altruism is a costly signal of good genes. This paper shows that these two arguments are stronger together in that altruists who can mentalize have a greater advantage over nonaltruists when they can signal their type, even though these signals are costly, when such signaling allows better matching opportunities. Finally, it shows how mentalizing leads to higher payoffs for both partners in a long-term relationship, modeled as a repeated game with private monitoring.