Biological market theory in the social sciences

• André, J.-B., & Baumard, N. (2011). The evolution of fairness in a biological market. Evolution, 65(5), 1447-1456

• André, J.-B., & Baumard, N. (2011). Social opportunities and the evolution of fairness. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 289(0), 128-135

• Arai, S., Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2023). Group as a biological market: Eliminating reputation concern decreases ingroup-favouring cooperation and punishment. psyARiv.

• Arai, S., Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2022). Why punish cheaters? Those who withdraw cooperation enjoy better reputations than punishers, but both are viewed as difficult to exploit. Evolution and Human Behavior.

• Arai, S., Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2022). Motivations to reciprocate cooperation and punish defection are calibrated by estimates of how easily others can switch partners. PLOS ONE, 17(4), e0267153

• Barclay, P. (2013). Strategies for cooperation in biological markets, especially for humans. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(3), 164-175

• Barclay, P. (2016). Biological markets and the effects of partner choice on cooperation and friendship. Current Opinion in Psychology, 7, 33–38

• Baumard, N. (2016). The origins of fairness: How evolution explains our moral nature: Oxford University Press.

• Baumard, N. (2011). Punishment is not a group adaptation. Humans punish to restore fairness rather than to support group cooperation. Mind & Society, 10(1), 1-26

• Baumard, N., André, J.-B., & Sperber, D. (2013). A mutualistic approach to morality: The evolution of fairness by partner choice. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(01), 59-78

• Baumard, N., & Sheskin, M. (2015). Partner choice and the evolution of a contractualist morality. In J. Decety & T. Wheatley (Eds.), The Moral Brain: A Multidisciplinary Perspective: M.I.T. Press.

• Bliege Bird, R., Ready, E. & Power, E. A. (2018). The social significance of subtle signals. Nature Human Behaviour 2, 452–457. A highly interesting review in which two rather distinct forms of signalling by showing generous (‘altruistic’) behaviour are compared, notably in the context of food sharing: public displays of superior abilities of producing and offering resources, such as the Meriam turtle hunters giving away their complete catch and much more private gifts, which are often reciprocal and can even consist of exchanges of food of the same quality and quantity, such as by Martu women exchanging lizards. The authors propose that the function of the blatant public form is to advertise one’s value as a partner, which notably plays a role in the context of partner choice. They suggest the second, more subtle form plays a role in the maintenance of existing relationships, both among kin and non-kin. Such relationships are valuable, not because of the daily food exchanges, but as an assurance of support in unexpected disastrous events. The latter reminds of the use of grooming in primates, which is also a low cost, regular investment in partners that can eventually be important as supporters in unexpected conflicts.)

• Chiang, Y.-S. (2008). A path toward fairness: preferential association and the evolution of strategies in the Ultimatum Game. Rationality and Society, 20(2), 173-201

• Chiang, Y.-S. (2010). Self-interested partner selection can lead to the emergence of fairness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(4), 265-270

• Debove, S., Baumard, N., & André, J.-B. (2015). Evolution of equal division among unequal partners. Evolution, 2(69), 561-569

• Debove, S., André, J.-B., & Baumard, N. (2015). Partner choice creates fairness in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 282(1808)

• Eisenbruch, A. B. & Roney, J. R. (2017). The skillful and the stingy: Partner choice decisions and fairness intuitions suggest human adaptation for a biological market of cooperators. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 3, 364–378

• Everett, J. A., Faber, N. S., Savulescu, J. & Crockett, M. J. (2018). The costs of being consequentialist: Social perceptions of those who harm and help for the greater good. psyarXiv

• Forber, P., & Smead, R. (2014). The evolution of fairness through spite. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1780)

• Garfield, Z. H., von Rueden, C. R. & Hagen, E. H. (2025). The Multi-Capital Leadership Theory. Human Nature

• Giardini, F., Balliet, D., Power, E. A., Számadó, S. & Takács, K. (2022). Four puzzles of reputation-based cooperation. Human Nature 33, 43–61

• Grueneisen, S., Török, G., Wathiyage Don, A. & Ruggeri, A. (2023). Young children's adaptive partner choice in cooperation and competition contexts. Child Development

• Haugan, T. (2023). Social anxiety in modern societies from an evolutionary perspective. Discover Psychology, 3(1), 12

• Kawamura, Y. & Barclay, P. (2025). Wealth or generosity? People choose partners based on whichever is more variable. Evolution and Human Behavior, 46(5), 106727

• Martin, J. W., & Cushman, F. A. (2015). To punish or to leave: Distinct cognitive processes underlie partner control and partner choice behaviors. PLoS ONE  10(4): e0125193. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0125193. This paper is rather interesting, since it reports an experimental test of cognitive processes needed to play either a 'partner control' or a 'partner choice' variety of the game (a type of ultimatum game with a 'trembling hand' element by which the amount of influence of the proposer on the payoff distribution can be determined)

• Martin, J., Young, L. & McAuliffe, K. (2019). The psychology of partner choice. PsyarXiv.

• Monroe, A. (2020). Moral elevation: Indications of functional integration with welfare trade-off calibration and estimation mechanisms. Evolution and Human Behavior 41(4), 293-302

• Raihani, N. J. & Barclay, P. (2016). Exploring the trade-off between quality and fairness in human partner choice. Royal Society Open Science, 3(11)

• Redhead, D., Ragione, A. D. & Ross, C. T. (2023). Friendship and partner choice in rural Colombia. Evolution and Human Behavior, 44(5), 430-441

• Roberts, G. (1998). Competitive altruism: from reciprocity to the handicap principle. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, B., 265, 427-431

• Rotella, A. (2020). Who cooperates and why? Investigations of the roles of individual differences and reputation in cooperative behaviours. PhD, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

• Számadó, S., Balliet, D., Giardini, F., Power, E. A. & Takács, K. (2021). The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1838), 20200286. This is the introduction of a theme issue with several further interesting papers

• Smith, K. & Apicella, C. L. (2020). Partner choice in human evolution: The role of cooperation, foraging ability, and culture in Hadza campmate preferences. Evolution and Human Behavior 41(5), 354-366

• Stovel, K. & Chiang, Y.-S. (2016). Commitments and contests: How preferential association produces equity. American Behavioral Scientist, 16(10)

• de La Trobe, A. V. T., Brown, G. D. A. & Walasek, L. (2025). Multiple reputations: selective attention to competence and character. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 01461672241301116

• Wardil, L. & Hauert, C. (2016). Targeted cooperative actions shape social networks. PLoS ONE, 11(1), e0147850

• Witteveen, J. (2019). Biological markets, cooperation, and the evolution of morality. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science