Why Humans Cooperate A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation

Why Humans Cooperate takes a unique look at the evolution of human cooperation and tries to answer the question: why are people willing to help others at a cost to themselves? The book brings together evolutionary theories, economic experiments, and an anthropological case study that runs throughout the book to explain and illustrate human cooperation. Using an evolutionary framework, Natalie Henrich and Joseph Henrich have expanded upon several diverse theories for explaining cooperative for "helpful" behavior and integrated them into a unified theory. Established concepts such as kin selection and reciprocity have been linked with theories on social learning and our evolved psychologies to explain the universality of human cooperation-as well as the distinctive ways in which cooperative behavior expresses itself in different cultures.

Natalie Henrich is Assistant Professor at University of British Columbia, Department of Medicine/BCCDC (BC Center for Disease Control)

Joseph Henrich is Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition, & Evolution and Associate Professor of Psychology and Economics at the University of British Columbia.