“Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies

TLDR

Researchers across social sciences have found consistent deviations from the canonical self‑interest model in many experiments worldwide, yet prior work cannot determine whether this uniformity reflects universal behavior or limited cultural variation among university students. The study aims to determine whether deviations from the self‑interest model are universal or culturally specific by conducting ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games across diverse small‑scale societies. The authors performed cross‑cultural experiments using ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a variety of small‑scale societies with diverse economic and cultural contexts. The results show that the self‑interest model fails in all societies studied, that behavioral variability is greater than previously reported, that differences in market integration and cooperative payoffs explain much of this variation, that individual economic and demographic factors do not consistently predict behavior, and that experimental play often mirrors everyday interaction patterns.

Abstract

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life.