Welcome to my
website!
I am a social scientist working on questions regarding human
morality, cooperation, and cultural evolution.
Theoretically,
I usually approach these questions through (evolutionary)
game-theory, both analytically and through computer
simulations. Empirically, I am largely tool-agnostic to
statistical inference methods, prioritizing design based
principles and triangulation through different data types
and sources. More recently, I have also begun working on
methodological problems in computational text analysis.
Currently,
I am a PhD candidate at the University of Mannheim, Germany.
Why do people in some societies take revenge when they are cheated, while in others they respond by gossiping or simply by cutting ties with the offender? Via a game-theoretical model, the paper shows that a plausible explanation for these systematic differences are cultural beliefs. Extensive empirical tests, drawing on ethnographic data from pre-industrial societies and from four modern multi-national survey programs, suggest that the proposed framework captures general mechanisms underlying cross-societal variation in enforcement strategies.
contact me
If you are interested in my research, want to exchange ideas or collaborate, please do not hesitate to reach out!
max.otto@uni-mannheim.de
You can also follow my work here:
OSF
ORCID
GitHub
