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Honest smiles as a costly signal in social exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2010

Samuele Centorrino ,
Elodie Djemai ,
Astrid Hopfensitz ,
Manfred Milinski  and
Paul Seabright
Samuele Centorrino
Affiliation:
Toulouse School of Economics, 31000 Toulouse, France. samuele.centorrino@hotmail.itelodiedjemai@gmail.comAstrid.Hopfensitz@tse-fr.euPaul.Seabright@tse-fr.eu
Elodie Djemai
Affiliation:
Toulouse School of Economics, 31000 Toulouse, France. samuele.centorrino@hotmail.itelodiedjemai@gmail.comAstrid.Hopfensitz@tse-fr.euPaul.Seabright@tse-fr.eu
Astrid Hopfensitz
Affiliation:
Toulouse School of Economics, 31000 Toulouse, France. samuele.centorrino@hotmail.itelodiedjemai@gmail.comAstrid.Hopfensitz@tse-fr.euPaul.Seabright@tse-fr.eu
Manfred Milinski
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24306 Plön, Germany. milinski@evolbio.mpg.de
Paul Seabright
Affiliation:
Toulouse School of Economics, 31000 Toulouse, France. samuele.centorrino@hotmail.itelodiedjemai@gmail.comAstrid.Hopfensitz@tse-fr.euPaul.Seabright@tse-fr.eu
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Abstract

Smiling can be interpreted as a costly signal of future benefits from cooperation between the individual smiling and the individual to whom the smile is directed. The target article by Niedenthal et al. gives little attention to the possible mechanisms by which smiling may have evolved. In our view, there are strong reasons to think that smiling has the key characteristics of a costly signal.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 6 , December 2010 , pp. 439
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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