Consistent conjectures and the evolutionary stability of other-regarding preferences

In a model of evolution in a large but finite population, players in two-player games adopt other regarding preferences over their opponents' material payoffs. We show that when the players have consistent conjectures the evolutionarily stable other-regarding preference approaches the self-regarding limit, i.e. zero, as the population size increases. When players have zero conjectures, the evolutionarily stable other-regarding preference depends on the complementarity parameter that defines the contextual specification of the game. (c) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.