THE MAIN PURPOSE OF A LABOR UNION / TUTORIALOUTLET DOT COM THE MAIN PURPOSE OF A LABOR UNION / TUTORIALOUTLET | Page 35

National Science Foundation, and the LS&A Enrichment
Fund of The University of
Michigan. Abstract Ethnocentrism is a nearly universal
syndrome of attitudes and behaviors.
Behaviors associated with ethnocentrism include cooperation
with members of the
in-group, but not out-groups. We show that ethnocentric
behavior can emerge from
a simple evolutionary model of local competition between
individuals. Our agentbased model treats interactions as one-
move Prisoner‘s Dilemmas, and the
inheritance of strategies as genetic, cultural, or (most plausibly)
both. Results from
the model demonstrate that ethnocentric behavior can evolve
even when direct
reciprocity is impossible, opportunities for ―cheating‖ exist, and
agents have minimal
cognitive ability. When cooperating is relatively costly,
ethnocentric behavior can
even be necessary to sustain cooperation. Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is a nearly universal syndrome of attitudes and
behaviors. The
attitudes include seeing one‘s own group (the in-group) as
virtuous and superior and an
out-group as contemptible and inferior. The attitudes also
include seeing ones own
standards of value as universal. The behaviors associated with
ethnocentrism are
cooperative relations with the in-group and absence of
cooperative relations with the outgroup (LeVine and Campbell,
1972). Membership in an ethnic group is typically -2- evaluated
in terms of one or more observable characteristics (such as
language, accent,