15 Country Survey

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Overview

The 15 country survey was conducted by several highly regarded and influential economists such as John Henrich, Ernst Fehr, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Richard Mcelreath, and Colin Camerer. The one problem that bothered these economists was the canonical assumption that individuals in today’s society are entirely self-interested. [9] Many experiments showed that people care about fairness and reciprocity, are willing to change the distribution of material outcomes at a personal cost, and are willing to reward those who act in a cooperative manner rather than those who act in opposition. [9] However, there were still some essential questions which needed answer. Do individual’s social and economic environments shape behavior or is there a universal pattern of behavior? Is it individual’s attributes such as age, sex, relative wealth, or groups which they belong to responsible for this behavior? And lastly, are there cultures that approximate the canonical account of self-regarding behavior? [9] The researchers realized that these questions could not be answered because normally the subjects questioned are college students. So the researchers went to five continents and 12 different countries, and studied 15 small-scale societies exhibiting a wide range of economic and cultural conditions. [9]

The 15 Countries

The sample consisted of three foraging societies, six cultures that practice slash and burn horticulture, four nomadic herding groups, and three sedentary, small-scale agriculturalists societies. [9]

Evidence

Much like the experiment used on college students, the economists decided to use the ultimatum game in all 17 societies. Player 1, or the prosperer, is provisionally assigned an amount which is equivalent to a day to two days wage, and Player 1 is asked to assign a portion of the wage to Player 2, or the responder. Aligning with the rules of the game mentioned under Vernon Smith, the respondent then chooses whether or not to accept the offer. [9]

The results of the study showed that contrary to the prediction of the standard model, even the groups with the smallest offers have means greater than 25 percent of stake size. Some societies such as the Torguud and the Mapuche had offers of between 30 and 40 percent. [9] Shockingly, the Ache and the Lamelara had mean offers greater than 50 percent. The group differences are drastically larger than those seen in the studies performed on college students. The mean offer in industrial societies tends to sit around 44 percent, but in this study the range was from 26 percent to 58 percent. [9] Another striking difference is in the rejection rate. Industrial societies tend to turn to the offer when it's 20 percent or less much more often then seen in the societies study.

Another technique the researchers used to study these societies was the dictator game. However, only 3 of the 17 societies were used under this study. [9] Although the study was small, the groups were different in culture and the outcome was extremely similar. The behavior of these groups deviated from that of industrial society. In the study performed on college studies, the mode was normally zero with a secondary mode at 50/50. [9] In the groups study, there was no mode at zero. The mode for the Orma was at 50 percent with a secondary mode at 20 percent, the mode for the Hadza dictators was 10 percent, and finally the Tsimane had mode was 25 percent with a mode of 32.[9]

Why the Difference?

The largest variations across the different cultural groups suggest that preferences or expectations are affected by group specific conditions, such as social institutions or cultural fairness norms. The researches decided to narrow their focus from broad topics to the behavior of the first player, or prosperers. The researches decided to narrow their focus from broad topics to the behavior of the first player, or prosperers. [9] When looking at the prosperers, there were two questions asked: How important and how large is the group’s payoff from cooperation in economic production? And how much do the people rely on the market exchange in their everyday lives?[9]

When discussing cooperation, the groups tended to differ in reasons as to why they chose to act how they did in the ultimatum game. Some tribes, such as the Machiguenga and the Tsimane ranked the lowest for cooperation because they are primarily family oriented tribes where the family provides for themselves. [9] On the other hand, societies such as the Lamelara rely on large groups to hunt together in the ocean for whale and other big game fish. [9] Without the help from others, there would be no chance of survival for individuals and their family so the level of cooperation is much high in such groups.

Many groups entered in these games and found ways to relate what was going on to situations which they were familiar with. When it came to gift giving, many societies related the game to gift-giving, an act commonly done for these people. [9] The realization was that at one time in the future, those receiving the gift were more likely to give back than not. If the gift was too large, there was anxiety and fear that there would not be a way to reciprocate the offer and thus there was a denial in the good or commodity.[9]

Discussion

The data indicate that the degree of sharing and cooperation exhibited by the subjects under experimentation relate closely with the actions of everyday life of these cultures. Why would subjects be willing to share resources and undertake costly reciprocal actions when they would remain anonymous? [9] Researchers concluded that the reason for this is that the behaviors in the situations cue emotional responses which induce the behaviors documented. For example, when facing a low offer in the ultimatum game, people from advanced societies might experience an emotional impulse to hurt the proposer for being unfair. [9]Similarly, those in the underdeveloped societies might reject an offer deemed too much because of the anxiety of not being able to reciprocate the gift.

Conclusion

The researchers came to the conclusion that there needs to be two revisions in the rational-actor framework. First, the canonical model of self-interested material payoff maximizing actor is systematically violated. Second, preferences over economic choices are not exogenous as the canonical model would have it, but rather shaped by the economical and social interactions of everyday life. To conclude, the connection between experimental behavior and the structure of everyday economic life should provide an important clue in revising the canonical model of individual choice behavior.

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