Games Primates Play: An Undercover Investigation of the Evolution and Economics of Human Relationships

by Dario Maestripieri

  Some of the more interesting studies have compared the outcomes of manuscripts reviewed with single-blind peer review and those reviewed with double-blind peer review. Single-blind review is the traditional system in which the reviewer is anonymous but the author isn’t, while in the double-blind review the author is anonymous too. To make the author anonymous, the first page of a manuscript or grant application, which contains the author’s name and personal information, is removed before the document is sent to the reviewers. It turns out that reviewers are more likely to recommend rejection when authors are women, citizens of another country, or professors belonging to competing institutions to a much greater extent in single-blind reviews than in double-blind reviews. In other words, when reviewers know the author’s identity, their reviews express all kinds of biases against particular groups of people. (Note: Double-blind review is better than single-blind review but far from perfect: in many cases reviewers can still guess who the authors are.) The bias against women is particularly serious because it may contribute to forcing women out of research and academia. Although an increasing number of women obtain PhDs and begin academic careers, many more of them are likely to drop out of academia than men.21

  Age cohort effects have not, to my knowledge, been formally studied with comparisons of single-blind and double-blind peer reviews, but it is well known in academia that members of the same age cohort regularly help each other’s careers—whether because of past ties or common interests—at the expense of other age cohorts. For example, the members of the baby boom generation (born between 1945 and 1960) are a powerful group in American academia: many of them hold positions of power that allow them to make life-or-death decisions about the careers and success of younger researchers. (I discussed the nepotistic behavior of baby boomers in Chapter 3.) Instead of helping the younger generations, many baby boomers hold on to their power and resources with all the means at their disposal, crushing the professional hopes and ambitions of the generations that follow them. I know of senior professors who have obtained funding from the U.S. government for thirty years in a row and who consistently write harsh anonymous reviews to thwart the attempts of young scientists to obtain their first grant. As a government grant administrator who oversees hundreds of grant reviews once said to me, “Senior scientists kill their young.” (Unless the young are biological or adopted relatives, of course.)

  Studies of the peer review system have also shown that when authors request that particular individuals be excluded as possible reviewers because of competition, their manuscripts and grants are more likely to get accepted than when the reviewers are chosen without the author’s input. Again, this shows that reviewer competition is a real phenomenon. There are also studies showing that when reviewers sign their reviews and reveal their identity, their reviews are more likely to contain constructive, rather than destructive, criticism. Finally, harsh anonymous reviews of articles submitted to prestigious journals with a rejection rate higher than 90 percent are especially common. Some authors submit only their best manuscripts to prestigious journals and end up receiving—even as they report their newest and most exciting findings—the worst reviews of their lifetime.

  If you are a scientist who has received an unfair rejection from a prestigious journal such as Science or Nature, you are in very good company. Juan Miguel Campanario, a physicist at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, Spain, has compiled an online archive of more than thirty instances in which an article describing an important discovery in science or medicine that later resulted in its author being awarded the Nobel Prize was initially “trashed” by an anonymous referee reviewing it for a prestigious journal.22 Campanario has also documented instances in which articles reporting a Nobel Prize–worthy discovery were immediately and harshly criticized upon publication by fellow researchers who wrote letters and commentaries to dismiss the new discovery. Campanario’s collection of rejections and criticisms experienced by Nobel Prize winners neatly illustrates the hurdles that professors have to overcome to publish their best work and get it recognized by their peers.

  The examples in Campanario’s online archive are just the tip of the iceberg. The history of every discipline is full of examples of articles reporting important discoveries that were either harshly rejected initially or ignored for a long time. The truth is that outstanding papers are more difficult to publish than papers of average quality, just as it’s more difficult to obtain funding for original and innovative research projects than for conservative projects that entail only minor extensions of research already done before. There are many possible explanations for this phenomenon: papers with claims of important discovery are scrutinized more carefully than others; many such claims turn out to be unfounded and therefore rejection is warranted; new ideas are difficult to understand and don’t fit into existing paradigms; or the whole process of scientific progress is very conservative and proceeds with small steps. All of these explanations are partly correct, but I think competition between researchers plays an important role as well, and reviewer anonymity makes competition a lot more prominent.

  Some of my colleagues think that my views of the peer review system are overly pessimistic. They concede that anonymous reviewers are sometimes sloppy or wrong and may hurt authors unfairly, but this outcome is rarely intentional, they argue, and has little to do with competition. By and large, the anonymous peer review system has a lot of support, which explains why it’s still so popular. My view—that reviewers should reveal their identity in order to take responsibility for what they write or pay a price when they abuse the system—is the minority view and always faces strong resistance. The main objection is a human nature argument: everyone is afraid that authors would retaliate against reviewers who reject their work—even if the rejection is fair and justified. Supporters of the anonymous peer review system are certain that reviewers are always honest and professional, but they seem to have very little confidence that authors would play by the rules, not take rejection personally, and restrain their impulses to seek revenge against unfavorable reviewers.

  This raises an important question: why is it that the influence of human nature on the author’s behavior is so readily recognized while the influence of human nature on the reviewer’s behavior is so easily dismissed? Here is a possible explanation. The author’s retaliation against an unfavorable reviewer can be interpreted as a form of self-defense, and we all accept that humans have a strong instinct for self-defense. The notion that reviewers could take advantage of anonymity to hurt their competitors, however, implies that we have an instinct for offense, for unprovoked aggression, and that we express it when anonymity shifts the costs and benefits of competition and makes it advantageous. Although the tendency for unprovoked offense is as hardwired in our brains as self-defense and retaliation, self-defense is easier to justify on moral (and legal) grounds. We expect that people will try to hurt those who have hurt them (even the Bible recommends “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”), but hurting others who haven’t done anything, merely because it’s possible and personally advantageous to do so, is considered morally reprehensible. Hence, to recognize that reviewers may use anonymity to hurt their competitors is to acknowledge that human beings are morally corrupt (or simply amoral) creatures. It’s better to think that there are a few bad apples out there who can be neutralized.

  Although “people’s collective wisdom” and the rational models of human behavior developed by economists and evolutionary biologists tell us that “opportunity turns man into a thief,” many find this view of human nature hard to swallow. It’s a lot more comforting to think that humans are guided by moral principles and religious beliefs than to admit that cost-benefit ratios usually hold sway. Rational explanations of human behavior are labeled cynical because they leave no room for morality or religion. Even the most modern, civilized, and religious societies, however, force their citizens to cooperate with one another and to curb selfish competitive tendencies by manipulating th
e costs and benefits of cooperation and competition—for example, through the law enforcement system. The police are out on the streets every day to make sure we don’t give in to the temptation to steal from and murder others and to ensure that we are swiftly caught and punished if we do. Many, however, prefer to think that the world is divided into good and bad people and that the police exist to protect the good folks from the bad ones.

  Well-educated people such as university professors are—like everyone else—sensitive to the changes in the cost-benefit ratio of their behavior brought about by anonymity, and reviewers can abuse anonymous peer review for competitive purposes despite signing agreements in which they promise not to. Human beings are more likely to behave themselves and to be generous toward others when they are being watched—or when they think that they are being watched—because they expect to be rewarded when they help others and punished when they hurt them. When darkness falls and anonymity reigns, however, all bets are off.

  Even in the darkness, of course, some people choose to behave themselves and to help others. If I find myself in Central Park in the middle of the night during the next power outage in New York City, I certainly hope that everyone around me will choose to be a good citizen. For all those who are in their homes when the lights go out, I’d recommend staying inside and locking the door. At all other times, while you are conducting social transactions that require cooperation, my advice is this: keep the lights on and let others know you’re watching.

  Chapter 6

  The Economics and Evolutionary Biology of Love

  What Went Wrong in Beverly Hills?

  If you believe the tabloids, film stars Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt met in 1998 on a blind date set up by their agents. Both were beautiful, successful, and ready to settle down in a stable relationship. Less than two years later, they were married in a blowout wedding in Malibu. After a nine-month search for their perfect love nest, they bought a $13.5 million, 12,000-square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills, which they completely renovated over a two-year period. Included in the renovation was the addition of a nursery, as it was clear that the couple had plans for starting a family. Jennifer and Brad also became business partners, cofounding the production company Plan B Entertainment, which produced several successful films, including Troy and the updated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The couple enjoyed a long (by Hollywood standards) period of marital bliss, during which they were featured on the cover of People or US Weekly more frequently as a happy couple than in the magazines’ usual reports of marital infidelities, spousal battery, or other celebrity drama. In November 2003, however, Brad met Angelina Jolie on the set of their new film, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the two fell in love. Brad and Jennifer announced their separation in January 2005, and their divorce was finalized in October 2005, by which point Angelina was already pregnant with Brad’s child.

  What went wrong? Was Brad and Jennifer’s love not real? Was their commitment not strong enough? Did they not want the same things from life? Did they discover things about each other that made them change their minds about being together? If Brad wasn’t sure that Jennifer was the perfect partner for him and was looking for an Angelina type, why did he decide to settle down with Jennifer?

  All of these questions have already been answered a million times by tabloid reporters, celebrity biographers, psychologists, psychiatrists, astrologers, and hundreds of other relationship and celebrity experts. As far as I know, however, no tabloid reporter ever interviewed an economist or an evolutionary biologist about the Brad and Jennifer marriage fiasco. And, you might ask, why would they? What do economists and evolutionary biologists know about love and relationships? Well, more than you might think. As it happens, economists and evolutionary biologists have a lot of the answers as to why marriages and romantic relationships work or don’t work. They will even go so far as to define what love is and why it exists in the first place.

  The Economics of Love

  TWO ECONOMISTS’ VIEWS

  According to the University of Chicago economist Gary Becker, author of A Treatise on the Family, we choose mates who best promote our material interests and then remain in the relationship as long as the benefits outweigh the costs.1 When the costs go up and the benefits go down, we call it quits. From Becker’s point of view, there is nothing mysterious about what happened to Brad and Jennifer. When they first met, they could give each other what they wanted, and they continued to do so for a few years, so they both benefited from being together. Then the circumstances changed; for one or both, the benefits of being in the relationship weren’t enough, while the costs started rising (like the cost of missing opportunities to date other people). When the costs outweighed the benefits, the relationship ended. This analysis exemplifies one way in which economists think about romantic relationships: we make rational decisions to start them and then to end them, and love is merely an afterthought. But not all economists agree.

  Economist and public intellectual Robert Frank lies more on the romantic end of the spectrum. In his 1988 book Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions, he rejects coldhearted cost-benefit analyses of romantic relationships and says that love is important, even as he tries to explain its existence with economic arguments.2 His view of love is embedded within a more general theory of the origins of emotions that blends biology and economics to try to explain why we have feelings and how our feelings help us deal with some of the problems of our everyday lives.

  Like Becker and other economists, Frank views romantic relationships as cooperative ventures in which two individuals choose to stay together to pursue joint goals—such as raising children or accumulating property (or producing movies, if you are Hollywood actors). Unlike the other economists, however, Frank is an optimist—he doesn’t believe that people always pursue selfish interests and that their behavior is necessarily the result of rational choice. The hallmark of romantic relationships, he maintains, is that two partners make a commitment to each other and stick together—or at least they try to—even when the cost-benefit ratio becomes unfavorable to one partner or both. How is that possible? As we saw in previous chapters, cooperative relationships between unrelated individuals can be a tricky business. Economists tell us that long-term cooperative relationships pose what they call a commitment problem.

  To illustrate this problem, Frank uses the following example. Imagine two guys—Smith and Jones—who want to open a restaurant together. Their complementary talents and skills make their cooperation advantageous: Smith is a talented cook, Jones is a good manager. If they each worked alone, their potential would be quite limited. Working together, however, each partner has some opportunities to cheat. Smith can take kickbacks from food suppliers, while Jones can steal from the cash drawer. If one of them cheats, the other one will lose big, while if they both cheat, they both stand to lose a great deal. It’s a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma. Playing tit-for-tat in this situation, however, is not an option—the first time either of them gets caught cheating, that’s the end of their restaurant. So rather than constantly checking each other’s moves and living with the anxiety of being cheated, Smith and Jones choose a different strategy: they make a commitment never to cheat each other and sign a contract to that effect.

  If Smith and Jones were purely rational beings and made decisions based on the relative costs and benefits of cooperating versus cheating, their commitment would mean nothing and would be doomed to failure. The problem is that no matter how beneficial it is to both partners to cooperate when they first start their joint business, sooner or later the circumstances will change and it will become advantageous to one partner, maybe to both, to cheat. It becomes very difficult to resist the temptation to cheat, especially if getting caught is unlikely. The partnership may stand a chance if the future circumstances that favor cheating can be predicted in advance (for instance, if opportunities for cheating predictably arise every ten years, Smith and Jones could simply sign a ten-year contract), or if Smit
h and Jones behave irrationally and are willing to pass up opportunities for cheating when they present themselves. Unfortunately, Smith and Jones cannot predict when future opportunities for cheating will arise, nor do they know each other well enough to be able to predict each other’s behavior when circumstances change.

  Even though the dilemmas of cooperation and the strategies to solve them are similar in animals and humans, as we saw in the previous chapter, humans have come up with creative ways to make an individual stick to a commitment to cooperate even when it would be more advantageous to defect. First, there are reputation effects: when other people (future business partners) find out who cooperates and who cheats, there is a boost in reputation that comes from cooperating, and a cost that comes from cheating. Second, there can be sanctions on cheating that make it unappealing regardless of the rise of favorable circumstances. Finally, there are internal mechanisms of control involving morality and feelings, which other animals presumably don’t have. Smith and Jones may stick to their commitment never to cheat each other simply because they think it’s wrong to cheat and would feel guilty if they did. If people who sign a contract of collaboration make a moral commitment to each other and back it up with the appropriate feelings, then there is a chance that the commitment might actually last.

  In a nutshell, Frank’s theory of feelings is that they exist to help people solve the commitment problem. His idea is that although human beings presumably evolved as selfish creatures whose behavior was entirely controlled by cost-benefit ratios, human social lives have become so complex that people need to rely on long-term cooperative relationships with unrelated individuals to survive and flourish. In these long-term cooperative relationships, it is imperative that we curb our selfish impulses and ignore the temptation to cheat even if it’s advantageous. Whether our sense of right and wrong is a “biological instinct” evolved by natural selection or the internalization of a social contract provided to us by our parents, society, and culture, morality is effective in making people cooperate regardless of their best interests. Feelings can help in this regard. Not only do we think it’s wrong to break a commitment, but we also feel guilty about it and regret the pain we have caused to the other party. These negative feelings can be a strong deterrent to breaking a commitment—though not to sociopaths who don’t feel anything—but positive feelings are important too. We feel good when a commitment is first made, and feel even better if it’s maintained for a long time, possibly forever. And here’s where romantic love enters the picture.