It probably feels obvious that having a close friend can influence your well-being. But do the groups that you're a part of also affect your well-being' For example, does the culture of your work colleagues influence your productivity' This phenomenon, called multilevel selection, is an extension of natural selection: the process by which organisms with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. Over generations, these advantageous traits ' behavioral, morphological or physiological ' become more common in the population. In the traditional view of how evolution works, natural selection acts on an individual organism's traits. For instance, mammals with more friends typically live longer lives and have more offspring. The trait under selection in this case is the number of social connections. Multilevel selection proposes that at the same time selection is happening on the traits of individuals, selection also acts on the traits of groups....
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