Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cultural Traditions And The Treatment Of Freeriders, Christina Pomianek Ph.D., Craig T. Palmer Ph.D., Reed L. Wadley Ph.D., Katherine Coe Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Evolutionary approaches to the explanation of human behavior are often employed in hypotheses about the toleration and punishment of freeriders. Despite the explanatory potential of evolutionary perspectives, many such perspectives ignore the unique human factor that has influenced the economic, social, and political contexts within which, up until very recently in human existence, reactions to freeriding always occurred. This human factor is the role of cultural traditions (i.e., behaviors passed down from ancestors to descendants). Cultural traditions necessarily play an important role in identifying, defining, preventing, and determining the treatment of freeriders because many traditional moral codes apply specifically to …