| Title |
Why do good hunters have higher reproductive success?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Human Nature, December 2004
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s12110-004-1013-9 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Eric Alden Smith |
| Abstract |
Anecdotal evidence from many hunter-gatherer societies suggests that successful hunters experience higher prestige and greater reproductive success. Detailed quantitative data on these patterns are now available for five widely dispersed cases (Ache, Hadza, !Kung, Lamalera, and Meriam) and indicate that better hunters exhibit higher age-corrected reproductive success than other men in their social group. Leading explanations to account for this pattern are: (1) direct provisioning of hunters' wives and offspring, (2) dyadic reciprocity, (3) indirect reciprocity, (4) costly signaling, and (5) phenotypic correlation. I examine the qualitative and quantitative evidence bearing on these explanations and conclude that although none can be definitively rejected, extensive and apparently unconditional sharing of large game somewhat weakens the first three explanations. The costly signaling explanation has support in some cases, although the exact nature of the benefits gained from mating or allying with or deferring to better hunters needs further study. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 15 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Spain | 1 | 7% |
| South Africa | 1 | 7% |
| United States | 1 | 7% |
| Russia | 1 | 7% |
| Unknown | 11 | 73% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 15 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 202 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 8 | 4% |
| United Kingdom | 3 | 1% |
| Japan | 2 | <1% |
| Finland | 1 | <1% |
| Argentina | 1 | <1% |
| Israel | 1 | <1% |
| Canada | 1 | <1% |
| Korea, Republic of | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 184 | 91% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 46 | 23% |
| Researcher | 33 | 16% |
| Student > Master | 30 | 15% |
| Student > Bachelor | 19 | 9% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 12 | 6% |
| Other | 42 | 21% |
| Unknown | 20 | 10% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Social Sciences | 54 | 27% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 54 | 27% |
| Psychology | 28 | 14% |
| Arts and Humanities | 16 | 8% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 5 | 2% |
| Other | 16 | 8% |
| Unknown | 29 | 14% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 270. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 July 2023.
All research outputs
#131,550
of 25,196,456 outputs
Outputs from Human Nature
#13
of 548 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#153
of 150,005 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Human Nature
#1
of 3 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,196,456 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 548 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 33.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
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