104 chapter four
If a contribution is critical in providing a public good... the donation might be
perceived as entirely selfishly motivated. After all, when givers profit personally
from the good they help to create, they have a personal incentive to contrib-
ute.... Therefore, this might not be interpreted as a reliable signal of a person’s
generosity or resources because any rational individual would be expected to
contribute under those circumstances. Yet when a person is essentially wast-
ing their resources on a public good that is unattainable — paradoxically — this
provides more reliable information about their underlying qualities.... People
are perhaps extra motivated to contribute to public goods and charities that
already have sufficient support... or are unlikely to be secured, provided that
these contributions are public rather than private. (Van Vugt and Hardy 2010 , 5 )
Blurton Jones ( 1984 , 1987 ) and Hawkes ( 1993 ) offer an alternative
model for prosociality in primitive societies. According to Hawkes, pro-
sociality is a form of “tolerated theft” in which the “haves” allow the
“have- nots” to partake in their surplus because defending these surpluses
is likely to prove more costly than allowing some excess to be consumed
(see also Peterson 1993 ). Thus, for example, in his seminal study of pri-
mate politics, Frans de Waal ( 2007 , 197 – 99 ) finds that food sharing oc-
curs only when there is an excess of food — when hunger is satiated and
therefore the cost of policing exceeds the cost of sharing. The tolerated-
theft argument offers an interesting way for thinking about prosociality
in international relations. However, even according to a model of toler-
ated theft, a prosocial act is a reliable signal for capabilities and rank— it
separates the haves from the have- nots. In the case of the chimps, de Waal
( 2007 , 199 ) finds that the alpha male supervises the distribution of food
excesses, leading him to conclude that control within chimp society “rests
on giving.”
Glazer and Konrad ( 1996 ) use a costly signal model as a basis for under-
standing charity. They argue that prosociality enjoys a high level of broad-
cast efficiency when compared to other forms of consumption, since the
provision of public goods is likely to be observed by all group members.
Their model offers an interesting account of the evolution of prosociality.
According to the authors, the initial act of giving is likely to be motivated
by a real commitment to other- help. In this case, the value of charity as a
prestige- enhancing signal is an unintended externality. However, this ex-
ternality attracts status seekers who value the secondary utility of giving
and now opportunistically join the ranks of the do- gooders. These status
seekers trigger a contest of beneficence that increases the cost of charity.
