Dave Phillips. Courtesy/SFI

SFI News:

12:15 p.m. • Tuesday, Feb. 26 • Collins Conference Room • 1399 Hyde Park Road • Santa Fe

Dave Phillips, curator of archaeology at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and a research associate professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, will discuss “A Game Approach to the Emergence of Hostile Leadership” Tuesday in a Santa Fe Institute Seminar.

Abstract: Recent archaeological models have examined consensual paths to incipient social leadership. A modification of the Hawk-Dove game explores conditions under which non-consensual appropriation of resources is rewarded. In some circumstances such behavior is not rewarded even in the absence of sanctions. Even when such behavior is otherwise rewarded, a small cadre of altruistic punishers can prevent the emergence of hostile leaders. Instead, successful resource appropriation on a hostile basis may require special strategies or circumstances, and consensus-based models of incipient leadership may better model actual historical processes of incipient leadership.