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THE IMPACT OF VERBAL COMMUNICATION ON THE DYNAMICS OF MALE GROUP COOPERATION (STUDY IN BURYATS OF SOUTHERN SIBERIA) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2020. Issue 2 (28). P. 127-140

Here we report on the results of the experimental study investigating an impact of verbal communication on male group cooperation. The coevolution of cooperation and verbal communication makes up a special interest within evolutionary anthropology, since Homo sapiens is distinguished by outstanding cooperative and communicative (language) abilities. Male cooperation is of particular interest. Historically emerged so that activities, which require high group-cooperation skills (warfare, big-game hunting), are predominantly or exclusively male occupations. Maintaining high level of cooperation among males, in contrast to females, was also encouraged by widely spread patrilocality tradition, meaning that males were closely genetically related with each other during the whole life-span (a powerful factor for enhancement of cooperation according to Hamilton’s kin-selection theory). Participants of our study were young men of Mongolian origin (Buryats of Southern Siberia), whose traditional culture involved nomadic pastoralism and patrilocality. Individual predispositions for pro-social behavior were assessed via group cooperation game – “Public Goods Game”, which was played in groups of four participants, under condition of the “face-to-face” interactions. In this game each participant was asked to decide how much of his own funds (real monetary equivalents were given to his disposal by the experimenter) he was willing to invest into a “common project” (not invested funds were kept by a participant). The sum of investments into “common project” was then doubled and distributed equally between all four group members. This game allows estimating individual predispositions for cooperation, cheating, and altruistic behavior. The experiment was conducted in 2 rounds: (1) under condition of absence of any intentional communication between participants; (2) with verbal negotiations option. Worth noting that all investment decisions in both rounds were made privily, so that other group members had no information on investments of their partners (even despite any verbal agreements in the second round). Our results have demonstrated that verbal communication has a crucial positive impact on cooperative behavior, shifts individual behavior towards maximizing group benefits as opposed to immediate personal gain. Increased individual verbal expressiveness was characteristic of highly pro-socially oriented subjects. However a small fraction of our participants was characterized by anti-social behavior (employing cheating strategy), and these subjects were even more talkative than others. This result suggests that cheaters have applied exaggerated (supernatural) stimulus to build own trustworthiness in a group, which is a prerequisite of successful cheating. The results are discussed from evolutionary perspective.

Keywords: cooperation, communication, verbal communication, Public Goods Game, altruism, Buryats, human evolution