English Explanatory Dictionary

green-beard effect

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. A hypothesis in evolutionary biology that explains selective altruism among individuals of a species, involving preferential treatment of individuals with certain characteristics.

Word forms

green-beard effect

Etymology

From a hypothetical example used in Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene (1976), whereby a person with a green beard acts altruistically towards other people with green beards.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on G Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary