ASEBL Journal – Volume 13 Issue 1, January 2018
istic, the agent must be perceived to properly execute the cultural rules associated with altruistic behavior or under particular circumstances. The agent sends a signal – a verbal or non-verbal communication about her tendency to help others – to those around her: she is altruistic in this circumstance, eliciting a reaction from others directly or indirectly. When a behavior is perceived to be altruistic, observers make a judgment about the agent’ s character that may benefit her.
If altruism is viewed as a signal about one’ s tendencies to bestow a benefit on others at a cost to oneself, intention and effect cease to be necessary criteria for behaving altruistically. An agent may send this signal inadvertently, intentionally, or deceitfully: while it may be required that she intends to act altruistically or that she has an altruistic effect, neither is necessary.
Frank( 1988) argues that the conviction one holds about one’ s honest intentions correlates positively and directly with the likelihood that others will believe one is genuine. The well-known example of tipping a waiter at a restaurant one has no intention of visiting again suggests this view is correct: there is no economically defensible reason to tip except that one believes, for whatever reason, that one should do so. Tipping well under this circumstance signals to others one’ s belief that one ought to tip. While any particular instance of this behavior is unlikely to benefit one in the future, the signals sent to others may, together, determine how one’ s traits are perceived in a population. This may indirectly benefit the agent if she is treated better because of her altruism.
Yet dishonest signaling of this variety is more likely to benefit the agent if executed correctly. Someone who understands her culture well is able to exploit this signaling system only for personal gain. Honest altruistic signaling may therefore be an example of the“ handicap” principle described by Zahavi( 1975): it may cost less to an agent to fake an altruistic signal than to communicate one genuinely, suggesting that altruism will be faked whenever someone believes she can successfully deceive.
It does not follow, however, that honest altruistic signaling is always a handicap, or that a particular agent will either always attempt to deceive or always signal honestly. Individuals differ only in the circumstances under which they will deceive, rather than in some binary sense where a particular individual always intends to deceive or be honest( Trivers, 1971). In a setting where other agents are likely to help one another – or at least where there are sufficient deterrents to prevent deception – altruistic signaling will not be a handicap. The cost of behaving altruistically may be counterbalanced by the risk of one’ s intended deception being detected. Conditional honesty is therefore probably favored, though the conditions are grounded in circumstance rather than the perceived odds of reciprocity alone.
Honest signaling is, for example, less likely if one is further removed from those with whom one interacts. Consider a system in which individuals representing institutions succeed only when their work-output receives approval points from others working within the same system. Receiving many approval points for one’ s work is beneficial for one’ s career and institution, making points invaluable for any individual. The institutions one represents are, furthermore, competing for scarce resources, so individuals
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