Publications
Select publications indexed here. Full publication history available on Google Scholar.
Cross-societal variation in norm enforcement systems
Catherine Molho, Francesca De Petrillo, Zachary H. Garfield and Sam Slewe (2024). "Cross-societal variation in norm enforcement systems." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
...Our review reveals that evidence on the role of these socio-ecological and cultural factors remains mixed and fragmented, partly because different studies focus on distinct subsets of variables putatively explaining variation in norm enforcement, while excluding other important variables.
Interpersonal conflicts and third-party mediation in a pastoralist society
Zachary H. Garfield and Luke Glowacki (2023). "Interpersonal conflicts and third-party mediation in a pastoralist society." Evolution and Human Behavior.
Our results suggest Hamar maintain cooperative and peaceful communities primarily through social structures, high within-clan cohesion, and gendered divisions of social and economic life, more so than through direct third-party mediation. Third parties, however, play a crucial role, especially in mediating social conflicts, and their involvement is often an effective and necessary solution for resolving severe interpersonal conflicts.
Norm violations and punishments across human societies
Zachary H. Garfield, Erik J. Ringen, William Buckner, Dithapelo Medupe, Richard W. Wrangham, and Luke Glowacki (2023). "Norm violations and punishments across human societies." Evolutionary Human Sciences. 5.
Accounting for the phylogenetic relationships among our cross-cultural sample, as well as correlations between evidence for punishment types, we found that egalitarianism (i.e. absence of social stratification) strongly predicted evidence for reputational punishments, whereas the presence of social stratification moderately predicted evidence for execution punishments.
Evidence for third-party mediation but not punishment in Mentawai justice
Manvir Singh and Zachary H. Garfield (2022). "Evidence for third-party mediation but not punishment in Mentawai justice." Nature Human Behavior. 6.
We found no evidence that third parties directly punished transgressors, such as by demanding that transgressors pay tulou or seizing resources from them after they refused to pay. Several researchers have argued that, even if third parties do not directly punish violations, they engage in second-order or indirect enforce- ment, such as by avoiding non-punishers as social partners. We did not find evidence of such higher-order or indirect sanctions.
Hunter-gatherer genomes reveal diverse demographic trajectories during the rise of farming in Eastern Africa
Shyamalika Gopalan, Richard E.W. Berl, Justin W. Myrick, Zachary H. Garfield, Austin W. Reynolds, Barnabas K. Bafens, Gillian Belbin, Mira Mastoras, Cole Williams, Michelle Daya, Akmel N. Negash, Marcus W. Feldman, Barry S. Hewlett, and Brenna M. Henn (2022). "Hunter-gatherer genomes reveal diverse demographic trajectories during the rise of farming in Eastern Africa." Current Biology. 32.
By analyzing eleven Eastern African populations, we find evidence for divergent demographic trajectories among hunter-gatherer-descendant groups. Our results illustrate that although foragers respond to encroaching agriculture and pastoralism with multiple strategies, including cultural adoption of agropastoralism, gene flow, and economic specialization, they often face population decline.
Religion: the WEIRDest concept in the world?
Aaron D. Lightner, Zachary H. Garfield & Edward H. Hagen (2022). "Religion: the WEIRDest concept in the world?" Religion, Brain & Behavior. 12(3), 290-298.
Henrich's view of religions as distinct, formal social institutions represents only some of the evidence on “religions” across cultures. Knowledge specialists who help clients are widespread in the ethnographic record. Their practical services can be misconstrued as religious rituals, and their abstract explanations as doctrinal beliefs in the supernatural..
The content and structure of reputation domains across human societies: a view from the evolutionary social sciences
Zachary H. Garfield, Ryan Schacht, Emily R. Post, Dominique Ingram, Andrea Uehling, and Shane J. Macfarlan (2021). "The content and structure of reputation domains across human societies: a view from the evolutionary social sciences." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 376(1838).
We hypothesize reputations for cultural group unity will be a context-independent universal, likely to manifest in all human societies, whereas reputations for social and material success, neural capital, and dominance are more likely to be context-dependent universals, promoted or suppressed by socio-ecological or cultural evolutionary processes.
Correlates of conflict resolution across cultures
Zachary H. Garfield (2021). "Correlates of conflict resolution across cultures." Evolutionary Human Sciences. 3(E45).
Interpersonal skills and fairness were the only leader qualities predictive of conflict resolution. This supports links between effective conflict resolution and moral evaluations of social justice, suggesting that individuals who conform to and embody such traits are preferred as mediators. Effective mediators of conflict then are not necessarily leaders who can be conceptualised as particularly prestigious or dominant but are more likely to be individuals who effectively identify overlapping interests between individuals with distinct priorities fairly, consistent with emerging views on leadership and followership focused on the process and outcomes over individual trait.
Universal and variable leadership dimensions across human societies
Zachary H. Garfield, Kristen L. Syme, and Edward H. Hagen. (2020). "Universal and variable leadership dimensions across human societies." Evolution and Human Behavior. 41(5).
Leaders across cultures rely on a range of individual competencies, including cognitive, supernatural, material, social, and physical endowments, to organize group members, implement strategic actions, provide prosocial services to the group, and impose costs, all while conforming to cultural norms. Currently, no single theoretical perspective has yet captured the ethnographic reality of human leadership.
Investigating evolutionary models of leadership among recently settled Ethiopian hunter-gatherers
Zachary H. Garfield and Edward H. Hagen (2020). "Investigating evolutionary models of leadership among recently settled Ethiopian hunter-gatherers." The Leadership Quarterly. 31(2).
The high colinearity of the diverse traits measured here suggests that each of the domains of leadership traits that we investigated — cognition, sociality, productivity, reproduction, and dominance — are potentially important in understanding variation between leaders and non‐leaders. To systematically overlook any of these domains may be a severe methodological limitation and this strong positive covariation of most leadership traits warrants further investigation.
Evolutionary models of leadership: Tests and synthesis
Zachary H. Garfield, Robert H. Hubbard, and Edward H. Hagen. (2019). "Evolutionary models of leadership: Tests and synthesis." Human Nature. 30(1).
We found that improving collective actions, having expertise, providing counsel, and being respected, having high neural capital, and being polygynous are common properties of leaders, which warrants a synthesis of the collective action, prestige, and neural capital and reproductive skew models. We sketch one such synthesis involving high-quality decision-making and other computational services.
The evolutionary anthropology of political leadership
Zachary H. Garfield, Christopher Von Rueden, and Edward H. Hagen. (2019). "The evolutionary anthropology of political leadership." The Leadership Quarterly. 30(1).
For the study of leadership, we see tremendous benefits to integrating diverse sources of evidence from studies of animal behavior, paleoanthropology, ethnography, psychology, political science, and other social sciences. The challenge will be to identify and explain universal patterns of human leadership systems while still doing justice to their diversity.
Is male androphilia a context-dependent cross-cultural universal?
Raymond B. Hames, Zachary H. Garfield, and Melissa J. Garfield. (2017). "Is male androphilia a context-dependent cross-cultural universal?" Archives of sexual behavior. 46(1).
Our results show that male same sex behavior as well as male androphilia is much more common than previously estimated in the SCCS. With our findings, we make an argument that male androphilia is a context-dependent cross-cultural universal.
A cross-cultural analysis of hunter-gatherer social learning
Zachary H. Garfield, Melissa J. Garfield, and Barry S. Hewlett. (2016). "A cross-cultural analysis of hunter-gatherer social learning." Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers.
We provide greater external validity to observational research and theoretical literature highlighting the importance of teaching across a wide range of cultures and cultural domains while also supporting the finding that vertical transmission is dominant early in life with various forms of oblique transmission being more important throughout life in hunting and gathering societies.
Testing the bargaining vs. inclusive fitness models of suicidal behavior against the ethnographic record.
Kristen L. Syme, Zachary H. Garfield, and Edward H. Hagen. (2016). "Testing the bargaining vs. inclusive fitness models of suicidal behavior against the ethnographic record." Evolution and Human Behavior. 37(3).
Suicidal behavior by younger, healthy adults in the context of fitness threats, such as forced or thwarted marriages, physical or sexual abuse, or loss of a mate; social conflict, such as severe disagreements with parents and other authority figures; and powerlessness to improve one's situation, is ubiquitous in the ethnographic record.
