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W302 Seeley G. Mudd Hall |
Research Interests
In my research, I study cooperation, the reasons for its existence, and the psychological mechanisms that underlie cooperative action. In particular, I focus on costly cooperation and punishment within human groups in social dilemmas such as the provision of public goods. I use an evolutionary psychological framework to generate hypotheses about human prosocial behavior. By using this approach, my research tries to understand when and why people act altruistically, what design features in the brain promote altruistic behaviour, and what selective pressures could have resulted in the brain being designed this way. To do so, I typically use experimental cooperative games involving money (such as the well-known Prisoner’s Dilemma and public goods games) where participants can make decisions that benefit themselves, others, or both.
Within the broad topic of cooperation, I have six main overlapping lines of research:
1) The individual benefits that people can receive for performing generous acts: if altruists receive private benefits for their actions, however unintended those benefits are, then this can cause natural selection and/or learning of altruistic sentiment. This is my main line of research, and includes the various studies that I’ve done on competitive altruism.
2) The functional causes of so-called “altruistic punishment”: why do people impose costs upon non-cooperators if it is personally costly to do so and if all group members (including non-punishers) benefit from the resulting increase in cooperation? My research to date has investigated reputational benefits for punitive behaviour including deterrence and trust, and the prevalence or lack thereof of second-order punishment (punishing those who don’t punish free-riders).
3) Biological markets for social partners, including partner choice: this exciting new area is the theoretical basis behind competitive altruism, among other things. I am commencing theoretical and empirical work on this area, including the bases for partner choice and the implications of these biological markets on cooperation.
4) Cognitive mechanisms underlying social exchange: how specific are these cognitive mechanisms, what other mechanisms are involved in social exchange, and what algorithms do they use? I have tested predictions about the specificity/generality of these cognitive mechanisms, including examining claims that humans possess mental algorithms specifically designed for dealing with people who “cheat” in social contracts.
5) Intergroup competition and other group threats: many theories predict that intragroup cooperation increases in the face of group threat. I have recently done work that empirically demonstrates this “stability-dependent cooperation” and shows how people (especially those of high status) will manipulate that to their own advantage, and I will continue to investigate how these tendencies vary with different types of intra- and intergroup threats (e.g. surmountable vs. insurmountable).
6) Mathematical modeling of any of the above: although new to this type of research, I am currently working on mathematical models or computer simulations of competitive altruism and partner choice, costly signals of cooperative intent, and the believability of gossip in indirect reciprocity. These are all at various stages of completion, and may have many implications for studies on ingroup behavior, religious behavior, culture, and group dynamics.
Although I focus primarily on group cooperation, I am interested in applying an evolutionary perspective to many aspects of social behavior, including but not limited to status, aggression, culture, religion, commitment, mating, and fertility.
Participate in Experiments
Live in the Ithaca area? Interested in participating in an experiment for money? Contact nbbexperiments@cornell.edu for more information.
Publications and Manuscripts
Barclay, P., & Daly, M. (2003). Humans should be individualistic and utility-maximizing, but not necessarily “rational”. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 26(2), 154-155.
Barclay, P. (2004). Trustworthiness and Competitive Altruism Can Also Solve the “Tragedy of the Commons”. Evolution & Human Behavior, 25(4), 209-220.
Krupp, D.B., Barclay, P., Daly, M., Kiyonari, T., Dingle, G., & Wilson, M. (2005). Let’s add some psychology (and maybe even some evolution) to the mix. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 28(6), 828-829.
Barclay, P., & Lalumière, M. (2006). Do people differentially remember cheaters? Human Nature, 17(1), 98-113.
Barclay, P. (2006). Dissertation abstract: Reputational benefits of altruism and altruistic punishment. Experimental Economics, 9(2), 181-182.
Barclay, P. (2006). Reputational benefits for altruistic punishment. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 325-344.
Barclay, P., & Willer, R. (2007). Partner choice creates competitive altruism in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, 274, 749-753.
Krupp, D. B., DeBruine, L. M., & Barclay, P. (2008). A cue of kinship promotes cooperation for the public good. Evolution & Human Behavior, 29(1), 49-55.
Barclay, P. (2008). Enhanced recognition of defectors depends on their rarity. Cognition, 107, 817-828.
Kiyonari, T., & Barclay, P. (2008). Free-riding may be thwarted by second-order rewards rather than punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(4), 826-842.
Barclay, P. (2008). Using the hatchet and burying it afterwards – A review of “Beyond revenge: The evolution of the forgiveness instinct”. Invited book review for Evolution & Human Behavior, 29(6), 450-451.
Barclay, P. (forthcoming). Reputational benefits of altruistic behavior. To appear in F. Columbus (Ed.) Altruism in Psychology and Sociology. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
Barclay, P. (forthcoming). Altruism as a courtship display: Some effects of altruism on audience perceptions. Accepted for publication in British Journal of Psychology.
Barclay, P. (submitted). “Don’t mess with the enforcer”: Deterrence as an individual-level benefit for punishing free-riders.
Barclay, P. (submitted). Biological markets, partner choice, and the evolution of competitive altruism.
Barclay, P. (working paper). Bidding to commit: An experimental test of the benefits of commitment under moderate degrees of conflict.
Barclay, P., & Benard, S. (working paper). Manipulation of group threats, status, and stability-dependent cooperation.
Feel free to e-mail me for a copy of any of these. Also, ask me about my other working papers on general markets for social partners, models of competitive altruism, or more recent work on stability-dependent cooperation and manipulation of social information & threat levels – they may be submitted (or with any luck, in press) by the time you read this.
Courses Taught
Human Sociobiology (3rd year)
Introduction to Behavior (2nd year - team taught)