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Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies Author(S) In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies Author(s): Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, Richard McElreath Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 91, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 2001), pp. 73-78 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2677736 Accessed: 28/08/2008 19:20 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aea. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies By JOSEPHHENRICH, ROBERT BOYD, SAMUELBOWLES, COLIN CAMERER,ERNST FEHR, HERBERTGINTIS, AND RICHARDMCELREATH* Recent investigations have uncovered large, ments shape behavior? If the latter, which eco- consistent deviationsfrom the predictionsof the nomic and social conditions are involved? Is textbook representationof Homo economicus reciprocalbehavior better explained statistically (Alvin E. Roth et al., 1991; Ernst Fehr and by individuals' attributessuch as their sex, age, Simon Gachter, 2000; Colin Camerer, 2001). or relative wealth, or by the attributesof the One problem appears to lie in economists' ca- group to which the individuals belong? Are nonical assumptionthat individuals are entirely there cultures that approximate the canonical self-interested:in additionto their own material account of self-regardingbehavior? payoffs, many experimentalsubjects appear to Existing research cannot answer such ques- care about fairness and reciprocity, are willing tions because virtually all subjects have been to change the distributionof materialoutcomes university students,and while there are cultural at personal cost, and are willing to rewardthose differences among studentpopulations through- who act in a cooperative mannerwhile punish- out the world, these differences are small com- ing those who do not even when these actions pared to the range of all social and cultural are costly to the individual. These deviations environments.To address the above questions, from what we will term the canonical model we and our collaborators undertook a large have importantconsequences for a wide range cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, of economic phenomena,including the optimal public good, and dictatorgames. Twelve expe- design of institutions and contracts,the alloca- rienced field researchers,working in 12 coun- tion of property rights, the conditions for suc- tries on five continents, recruitedsubjects from cessful collective action, the analysis of 15 small-scale societies exhibiting a wide vari- incomplete contracts, and the persistence of ety of economic and cultural conditions. Our noncompetitive wage premia. sample consists of three foraging societies, six Fundamentalquestions remain unanswered. that practice slash-and-burnhorticulture, four Are the deviations from the canonical model nomadic herding groups, and three sedentary, evidence of universalpatterns of behavior,or do small-scale agriculturalistsocieties. Our results the individual's economic and social environ- are described in detail, with extensive ethno- graphicaccounts of the cultures we studied and citations to the relevant literature,in Henrich et * Henrich: School of Business Administration,Univer- sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; Boyd and McEl- al. (2001); an extended overview paper is avail- reath: Department of Anthropology, University of able online.1 California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095; We can summarize our results as follows. Bowles: Department of Economics, University of Massa- First, the canonical model is not supportedin chusetts, Amherst,MA 01003, and SantaFe Institute;Cam- any society studied. Second, there is consider- erer: Department of Economics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125; Fehr: Institute for Em- ably more behavioral variability across groups pilical Research in Economics, University of Ztiiich, Bltim- than had been found in previous cross-cultural lisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006, Zurich, Switzerland; Gintis: research, and the canonical model fails in a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003. The wider variety of ways than in previous experi- research described in this paper was funded by the MacArthurFoundation's Research Group on the Natureand ments. Third, group-level differences in eco- Origin of Norms and Preferences,directed by Robert Boyd nomic organization and the degree of market and HerbertGintis. The field experiments were calTiedout by Henrich, McElreath,Michael Alvard, Abigail Barr,Jean Ensminger,Francisco Gil-Vhite, Michael Gurven,Kim Hill, FrankMarlowe, John Patton, Natalie Smith, and David Tracer. 1 URL: (www.santafe.edu) 73 74 AEA PAPERSAND PROCEEDINGS MAY2001 integrationexplain a substantialportion of the TABLE 1-THE ULTIMATUMGAME IN SMALL-SCALE behavioralvariation across societies: the higher SOCIETIES the degree of marketintegration and the higher Low- the payoffs to cooperation,the greaterthe level offer of cooperation in experimentalgames. Fourth, Mean Rejection rejection Group Country offera Modesb ratec rated individual-level economic and demographic variables do not explain behavior either within Machiguenga Peru 0.26 0.15/0.25 0.048 0.10 (72) (1/21) (1/10) or across groups. Fifth, behavior in the experi- Hadza Tanzania 0.40 0.50 0.19 0.80 ments is generally consistent with economic (big camp) (28) (5/26) (4/5) Hadza Tanzania 0.27 0.20 0.28 0.31 patternsof everyday life in these societies. (small (38) (8/29) (5/16) camp) I. The Evidence Tsiman6 Bolivia 0.37 0.5/0.3/0.25 0.00 0.00 (65) (0/70) (0/5) Quichua Ecuador 0.27 0.25 0.15 0.50 Because the ultimatumgame (UG) has been (47) (2/13) (1/2) conducted the Torguud Mongolia 0.35 0.25 0.05 0.00 throughout world with student (30) (1/20) (0/1) populationsand has generatedrobust violations Khazax Mongolia 0.36 0.25 of the canonicalmodel, we conductedthis game Mapuche Chile 0.34 0.50/0.33 0.067 0.2 (46) (2/30) (2/10) in all of our 17 societies. The "proposer"in this Au PNG 0.43 0.3 0.27 1.00 game is provisionally assigned an amount (33) (8/30) (1/1) equivalentto a day or two' s wages in the society Gnau PNG 0.38 0.4 0.4 0.50 (32) (10/25) (3/6) and asked to propose an offer to a second per- Sangu Tanzania 0.41 0.50 0.25 1.00 son, the "respondent."The respondentmay then farmers (35) (5/20) (1/1) Sangu Tanzania 0.42 0.50 0.05 1.00 either accept the offer, in which case the two herders (40) (1/20) (1/1) players receive the proposed amounts, or reject Unresettled Zimbabwe 0.41 0.50 0.1 0.33 it, in which case the two receive nothing. If both villagers (56) (3/31) (2/5) Resettled Zimbabwe 0.45 0.50 0.07 0.57 players conform to the canonical model and if villagers (70) (12/86) (4/7) this is common knowledge, it is easy to see that Achuar Ecuador 0.42 0.50 0.00 0.00 the proposerwill know that the respondentwill (36) (0/16) (0/1) Orma Kenya 0.44 0.50 0.04 0.00 accept any positive offer and so will offer the (54) (2/56) (0/0) smallest possible amount, which will be Ach6 Paraguay 0.51 0.50/0.40 0.00 0.00 (75) (0/5 1) (0/8) accepted. Lamelarae Indonesia 0.58 0.50 0.00 0.00 In most of our field experiments subjects (63) (3/8) (4/20) played anonymously, not knowing the identity Note: PNG = Papua New Guinea. of the person or persons with whom they were a This column shows the mean offer (as a proportion) in the ultimatum paired. The stakes of most games were denom- game for each society. b This column shows the modal offer(s), with the percentage of inated in money (though in some cases tobacco subjects who make modal offers (in parentheses). c The rejection rate (as a proportion), with the actual numbers given in or other goods were used). In all cases, we parentheses. d The rejection rate for offers of 20 percent or less, with the actual tested prospectiveparticipants for their compre- numbers given in parentheses. hension of the experiment and eliminated any e Includes experimenter-generated low offers. who appearednot to grasp the game. The systematic deviations from the canonical model in our sample of simple societies can be between 40 percent and 50 percent.Finally, the inferred from Table 1, which lists all groups Ache and the Lamelarahad mean offers greater where UG's were conducted. Contraryto the than 50 percent. prediction of the standard model, even the These group differences are strikingly large groups with the smallest offers have mean of- comparedto previous cross-culturalwork com- fers greaterthan 25 percent of stake size. Illus- paringultimatum-game behavior among univer- trating our second result (the large variation in sity students (Roth et al., 1991).
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