The classical social theorist Emile Durkheim proposed the counterintuitive thesis that crime is beneficial for society because it provokes punishment, which enhances social solidarity. His logic, however, is blemished by a reified view of society that leads to group-selectionist thinking and a teleological account of the causes of crime. Reconceptualization of the relationship between crime and punishment in terms of evolutionary game theory, however, suggests that crime (cheating) may confer benefits on cooperating individuals by promoting stability in their patterns of (...) cooperation. (shrink)

This essay treats the convert as as social type with four specifiable formal properties: biographical reconstruction; adoption of a master attribution scheme; suspension of analogical reasoning; and embracement of the convert role. These properties are derived from the talk and reasoning of converts to a culturally transplanted Buddhist movement and from accounts of other proselytizers and converts. We conclude that it is the convert's rhetoric rather than institutional context or ideological content that denotes the convert as a social type.

Women and men have evolved psychological traits adapted to different types of competition in the EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptedness). While women appear not to be as well adapted as men for violent status struggles, the decline of routine violence in status contests raises interesting questions about gender and status competition in contemporary societies.

Evolutionary analysis suggests that policies based on deterrence may cope effectively with primary sociopathy if the threat of punishment fits the crime in the cost/benefit calculus of the sociopath, not that of the public. On the other hand, policies designed to offset serious disadvantage in social competition may help inhibit the development of secondary sociopathy, rather than deter its expression.