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An implausible model and evolutionary explanation of the revenge motive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

Herbert Gintis
Herbert Gintis*
Affiliation:
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, and Department of Economics, Central European University, Nádor utca 9, 1051 Budapest, Hungary. hgintis@comcast.nethttp://www.santafe.eduhttp://people.umass.edu/gintis
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Abstract

McCullough et al.'s target article is a psychological version of the reputation models pioneered by biologist Robert Trivers (1971) and economist Robert Frank (1988). The authors, like Trivers and Frank, offer an implausible explanation of the fact that revenge is common even when there are no possible reputational effects. I sketch a more plausible model based on recent research.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 21 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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