Sarah Mathew

2.4k total citations · 1 hit paper
24 papers, 1.2k citations indexed

About

Sarah Mathew is a scholar working on Sociology and Political Science, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology and Safety Research. According to data from OpenAlex, Sarah Mathew has authored 24 papers receiving a total of 1.2k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 16 papers in Sociology and Political Science, 12 papers in Experimental and Cognitive Psychology and 9 papers in Safety Research. Recurrent topics in Sarah Mathew's work include Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (15 papers), Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (12 papers) and Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (9 papers). Sarah Mathew is often cited by papers focused on Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (15 papers), Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (12 papers) and Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (9 papers). Sarah Mathew collaborates with scholars based in United States, Germany and Canada. Sarah Mathew's co-authors include Robert Boyd, Matthew Zefferman, Charles Perreault, Carla Handley, Timothy M. Waring, Peter J. Richerson, Ryan Baldini, Adrian V. Bell, Lesley Newson and Paul E. Smaldino and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature Communications.

In The Last Decade

Sarah Mathew

22 papers receiving 1.2k citations

Hit Papers

align trajectories

What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence

2014 354 citations Peter J. Richerson, Ryan Baldini et al. Behavioral and Brain Sciences profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name	h						Papers	Cites
Sarah Mathew United States	13	848	315	314	314	189	24	1.2k
Joe Henrich United States	7	668 0.8×	182 0.6×	292 0.9×	195 0.6×	301 1.6×	10	1.0k
Maciej Chudek Canada	10	746 0.9×	239 0.8×	498 1.6×	196 0.6×	191 1.0×	13	1.2k
Jung-Kyoo Choi South Korea	8	873 1.0×	248 0.8×	228 0.7×	446 1.4×	45 0.2×	13	1.2k
Lesley Newson United States	10	471 0.6×	219 0.7×	200 0.6×	119 0.4×	150 0.8×	18	745
Nicolas Baumard France	25	1.2k 1.4×	565 1.8×	646 2.1×	407 1.3×	100 0.5×	78	1.9k
Bailey R. House United States	12	490 0.6×	270 0.9×	522 1.7×	177 0.6×	45 0.2×	17	992
Robert Knox Dentan United States	10	628 0.7×	282 0.9×	202 0.6×	170 0.5×	61 0.3×	34	986
Michelle A. Kline United States	16	482 0.6×	197 0.6×	417 1.3×	52 0.2×	379 2.0×	29	1.3k
Anne C. Pisor United States	16	447 0.5×	109 0.3×	267 0.9×	75 0.2×	62 0.3×	28	780
Benjamin Grant Purzycki Denmark	20	967 1.1×	260 0.8×	533 1.7×	119 0.4×	64 0.3×	67	1.4k

Countries citing papers authored by Sarah Mathew

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Sarah Mathew's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Sarah Mathew with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Sarah Mathew more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Sarah Mathew

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Sarah Mathew. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Sarah Mathew. The network helps show where Sarah Mathew may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Sarah Mathew

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Sarah Mathew. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Sarah Mathew based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Sarah Mathew. Sarah Mathew is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

Sort: Min cites: Since: Top N: Style:

20 of 20 papers shown

Mathew, Sarah, et al.. (2025). Metanorms generate stable yet adaptable normative social order in a politically decentralized society. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 380(1940).

Mathew, Sarah, et al.. (2024). Third-party arbitration and forgiving strategies increase cooperation when perception errors are common. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 291(2027). 20240861–20240861. 1 indexed citations

Mathew, Sarah. (2024). Why reciprocity is common in humans but rare in other animals. Nature. 626(8001). 955–956. 2 indexed citations

Mathew, Sarah, et al.. (2023). “Doing what others do” does not stabilize continuous norms. PNAS Nexus. 2(3). pgad054–pgad054. 5 indexed citations

Mathew, Sarah. (2022). Turkana warriors’ call to arms: how an egalitarian society mobilizes for cattle raids. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 377(1851). 20210144–20210144. 9 indexed citations

Moya, Cristina, Caitlyn D. Placek, Coren L. Apicella, et al.. (2022). The religiosity gender gap in 14 diverse societies. Religion Brain & Behavior. 12(1-2). 18–37. 9 indexed citations

Oill, Angela M. Taravella, et al.. (2022). Genomic analysis reveals geography rather than culture as the predominant factor shaping genetic variation in northern Kenyan human populations. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 178(3). 488–503.

Zefferman, Matthew & Sarah Mathew. (2021). Combat stress in a small-scale society suggests divergent evolutionary roots for posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118(15). 10 indexed citations

Boyd, Robert & Sarah Mathew. (2021). Arbitration supports reciprocity when there are frequent perception errors. Nature Human Behaviour. 5(5). 596–603. 17 indexed citations

10.

Handley, Carla & Sarah Mathew. (2020). Human large-scale cooperation as a product of competition between cultural groups. Nature Communications. 11(1). 702–702. 68 indexed citations

11.

Lang, Martin, Benjamin Grant Purzycki, Coren L. Apicella, et al.. (2019). Moralizing gods, impartiality and religious parochialism across 15 societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 286(1898). 20190202–20190202. 101 indexed citations

12.

Mathew, Sarah, et al.. (2018). Facile synthesis, growth process, characterisation of a nanourchin-structured α-MnO2 and their application on ultrasonic-assisted adsorptive removal of cationic dyes: A half-life and half-capacity concentration approach. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. 49. 175–189. 60 indexed citations

13.

Mathew, Sarah. (2017). How the Second-Order Free Rider Problem Is Solved in a Small-Scale Society. American Economic Review. 107(5). 578–581. 36 indexed citations

14.

Boyd, Robert & Sarah Mathew. (2015). Third-party monitoring and sanctions aid the evolution of language. Evolution and Human Behavior. 36(6). 475–479. 13 indexed citations

15.

Mathew, Sarah & Charles Perreault. (2015). Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social learning is the main mode of human adaptation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 282(1810). 20150061–20150061. 50 indexed citations

16.

Zefferman, Matthew & Sarah Mathew. (2015). An evolutionary theory of large‐scale human warfare: Group‐structured cultural selection. Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews. 24(2). 50–61. 61 indexed citations

17.

Richerson, Peter J., Ryan Baldini, Adrian V. Bell, et al.. (2014). Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 39. e30–e30. 354 indexed citations breakdown →

18.

Mathew, Sarah & Robert Boyd. (2013). The cost of cowardice: punitive sentiments towards free riders in Turkana raids. Evolution and Human Behavior. 35(1). 58–64. 47 indexed citations

19.

Perreault, Charles & Sarah Mathew. (2012). Dating the Origin of Language Using Phonemic Diversity. PLoS ONE. 7(4). e35289–e35289. 46 indexed citations

20.

Mathew, Sarah & Robert Boyd. (2008). When does optional participation allow the evolution of cooperation?. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 276(1659). 1167–1174. 46 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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