Taking value as the socio-economic analogue of biological or cultural fitness, in this paper I start a study of the interaction between individual-level and group-level explanatory mechanisms by looking for what kind of intra-group relationships obtains given the nature of inter-group relationships. Specifically, it is shown that when value comes from appropriating resources from other groups, inter-group relationships are conflictual or war-like and, as a consequence, intra-group-relationships are centralized and hierarchical; when the value creation process involves niche-competition between groups, inter-group relationships are fission-fusion with commitment and intra-group relationships are decentralized and egalitarian; finally, when value comes from appropriating occasional benefits from cooperation, inter-group relationships are indistinguishable from intra-group relationships, and the latter are decentralized and hierarchical. Interpreting intra-group relationships as different forms of social order and the division of labour, applications to political and economic institutions are also provided. Exploitation, a well-defined concept in the paper without recourse to the labour theory of value, is shown to be consistent with some of these institutions and, particularly, with the absence of explicit coercion.

In this paper we examine the role of social and organizational knowledge in managerial decision-making. In a series of experiments, we examined the following questions. (1) How are some implicit organizational variables such as the size of a group and the composition of a group related to risk perception and risky decisions? From a Darwinian perspective, humans have lived in small, nomadic, hunter-gatherers' groups throughout almost the entire evolutionary time. In making decisions at risk, the size of the group thus may serve as a cue signalling the structure and functions of a social group (e.g., kinship, reciprocity, interdependence among group members). To investigate the effects of these organizational variables, Wang (1996a, 1996b, 2001) used a well-known example of irrational decisions, framing effects (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981), as an empirical probe. Framing effects, characterized by an irrational reversal in risk preference due to different ways of presenting / framing the same choice outcomes, appeared only in large group contexts but disappeared in small group and kinship group contexts. Evolutionarily recurrent small group contexts (less than 1000 people) eliminated irrational reversal in risk preference. (2) Would risky choices between a sure option and a gamble of equal expected value vary as a function of the types of information provided in a decision problem? In contrast to verbal framing (e.g., presenting the same choice outcomes as if they are gains or as if they are losses), situational information about the real status of an organization should have independent reflection effects on risky choice. This so called reflection effect has been repeatedly shown in the literature, where people tend to be risk averse in gain situations but risk seeking in l...

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Contemporary research on racial categorization is mostly encompassed by two research traditions—social constructionism and the cognitive-cum-evolutionary approach. Although both literatures have some plausible empirical evidence and some theoretical insights to contribute to a full understanding of racial categorization, there has been little contact between their proponents. In order to foster such contacts, we critically review both traditions, focusing particularly on the recent evolutionary/cognitive explanations of racial categorization. On the basis of this critical survey, we put forward a list of eleven requirements that a satisfactory theory of racial categorization should satisfy. We conclude that despite some decisive progress, we are still far from having a complete theory of why humans classify people on the basis of skin color, body appearance or hair style. Key Words Racial categorization, racialism, social constructionism, cultural variation, cultural niches of concepts, evolutionary psychology, folk sociology, human kind module, coalitional module, ethnic cognition, ethnies, folk biology, psychological essentialism, cultural transmission. 1.