The collective action problem of male cooperative labor on Ifaluk Atoll

The pervasiveness of cooperation across human societies has posed a theoretical dilemma to behavioral scientists who utilize explanatory and predictive models that assume the pursuit of self-interest among individuals. Particularly challenging has been the analysis of situations known as collective action problems, in which the pursuit of self-interest for an individual leads to a less than optimal result for the group. This dissertation explores the collective action problem of male cooperative labor. The specific goals are: (1) to describe and explain the variation in male participation in cooperative labor activities, (2) to examine the criteria upon which men determine the amount of effort they will contribute to a cooperative labor activity, and (3) to explore the ecological determinants which impact the stability of cooperative labor.; Field research was conducted on Ifaluk Atoll of the Federated States of Micronesia. The research presented here focuses on the determinants of variation in individual participation in cooperative fishing, canoe building, and canoe repair activities of Ifaluk men.; Based on these determinants of variation, economic concepts and models of the cooperative production of nonexcludable resources are integrated into an ecological framework. This framework provides the basis for three investigations. First, a model of the evolution of cooperative fishing on Ifaluk is developed and tested on data of observed fishing activities. By assuming empirically observed biases in the fish distribution patterns, it is shown that the caloric payoff a male expects to receive is a significant predictor of cooperative fishing participation on Ifaluk. Second, bargaining theory, in its ecological and economic forms, is used to generate hypotheses concerning the frequency of participation in cooperative fishing events on Ifaluk. Age, clan rank, educational status, and number of offspring are significant predictors of cooperative fishing participation. Third, evolutionary game theory is used to explore individual variation in canoe building activities among Ifaluk men. Financial wealth is found to be the primary constraint limiting canoe building activities among Ifaluk men. Canoe owners achieve greater mean daily caloric gains than non-canoe owners, thus asymmetries in wealth are successfully translated into asymmetries in caloric gains, despite the widespread sharing of food resources on Ifaluk.