American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Competitive Altruism, Mentalizing, and Signaling
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 6,
no. 4, November 2014
(pp. 272–92)
Abstract
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 ad- vantage over non-altruists when they can signal their type, even though these signals are costly, when such signalling allows better matching opportunities. Finally, it shown how mentalizing leads to higher payoffs for both partners in a long-term relationship, modeled as a repeated game with private monitoring.Citation
Hopkins, Ed. 2014. "Competitive Altruism, Mentalizing, and Signaling." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 6 (4): 272–92. DOI: 10.1257/mic.6.4.272Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C73 Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games; Repeated Games
- D64 Altruism; Philanthropy
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
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