Generosity, third party punishment & theory of mind among ni-Vanuatu children

Abstract

Humans are a highly cooperative species, rivalled only by eusocial insects. There is also considerable diversity in the scale and forms that human cooperation takes. Investigating how certain cooperative capacities emerge in development and interact with particular environments provides deeper insights into the ontogenetic roots of our potential for large-scale cooperation. Behavioural economic games can measure generosity and the punishment of noncooperators in ephemeral and anonymous interactions. Although data has already been gathered from diverse populations including small-scale societies, few studies have gathered similar data from children. This project focuses on the children of the Melanesian Island nation of Vanuatu as its primary subject. Furthermore, it uniquely splits its focus between pikinini lo vilej (rural children from ‘the village’) and pikinini lo taon (‘urban’ children from the town). Using a combination of methods derived from behavioural economics, developmental psychology, and cultural anthropology, this research project investigates the emergence of generosity, ‘altruistic punishment’ (henceforth third party punishment), and theory of mind among ni-Vanuatu children. Research in developing countries such as Vanuatu need to focus more on differences not between ‘Western vs. non-Western’, but those occurring within the same general society between urban and rural contexts, which may influence very different pathways to social, behavioural, and even cognitive development. The urban/rural, town/village divide is not one that has been imposed by the researcher; it is a salient component of a ni-Vanuatu sense of place and a strong feature of local ideological narratives. This research project presents unique findings of large differences between urban and rural ni-Vanuatu children in important social, behavioural and cognitive domains. It underscores the importance of utilising not only multiple measures of capacities that undergird our cooperative nature, but of applying these equally between urban and rural non-Western populations in order that we might better understand how these environments shape different cooperative phenotypes necessary for different scales of cooperation.