Behav Brain Sci. 2016 Jan;39:e96. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X15001028.

The convergent and divergent evolution of social-behavioral economics.

Crespi BJ1.

Author information

• 1Department of Biological Sciences,Simon Fraser University,Burnaby,BC V5A 1S6,Canada.Crespi@sfu.cahttp://www.sfu.ca/biology/faculty/crespi/

Abstract

Human hunter-gatherers share a suite of traits with social insects, which demonstrates convergent social evolution of these taxa prior to agriculture. Humans differ from social insects in that their divisions of labor are more competitive than cooperative. Resulting higher within-group competition in humans has been alleviated by religion and culturally imposed monogamy, both of which also find parallels among social insects.