Cooperation
Chapter 1 - Worldview
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Welcome to the Cooperation page
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Humans are a "cultural species," heavily dependent on learning from others for survival. This reliance on cultural information has led to cumulative cultural evolution, creating vast knowledge and practices essential for human adaptation. The interaction between genetic and cultural evolution has shaped both universal features of human psychology and the diverse cultural psychologies observed globally.
Humans depend on socially transmitted information for survival, making culture a critical driver of cooperation. This process has created a vast repository of adaptive practices, norms, and institutions that guide cooperative behaviour.
Genetic evolution has interacted with cultural evolution to shape human psychology. For example, social norms favouring prosocial behaviour may have driven the selection of traits like reduced aggression, and we have evolved psychological mechanisms to internalize and enforce social norms, facilitating large-scale cooperation.
Intergroup competition has further incentivized cooperative behaviours within groups, as cohesive groups are more likely to succeed in conflicts or resource competition. It accounts for differences in cooperation across societies by highlighting how cultural evolution adapts norms and institutions to specific ecological and social contexts.
We can not understand human self-interest solely through the lens of individual genetic fitness. Instead, it is shaped by socially transmitted information for survival, making it inherently tied to the preservation and acquisition of cultural knowledge.
| Content source |
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| The Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation - Joseph Henrich and Michael Muthukrishna - Annual Review of Psychology - 2021 |
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Deep dive
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Reasons for cooperation
Reciprocity
Direct and indirect reciprocity is an essential motivator for cooperation. People are more likely to help when they expect that help will be repaid. This is true for both direct exchanges ("tit for tat") and indirect exchanges through reputation. However, direct reciprocity is limited in promoting cooperation on a large scale.
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Reputation
A good reputation can lead to more cooperation because people are more likely to help cooperative people. This mechanism, known as indirect reciprocity, can enable collaboration on a larger scale. Indirect reciprocity, however, can be undermined by conflicting reputations. When people belong to different groups with different norms, their reputation in one group can be at odds with their reputation in the other group.
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Intergroup competition
Competition between groups can lead to more cooperation within groups. When groups compete with each other for resources or status, groups with stronger cooperative bonds have an advantage.
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Norms and institutions
Cultural norms and institutions play an important role in promoting cooperation. These norms and institutions can create mechanisms that reward cooperation and punish uncooperative behaviour.
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Common goals
We must emphasize the importance of a common understanding, goals, and language for successful collaboration. These elements are necessary for the flow of ideas to be improved, which hinders innovation and collaboration.
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Reputation systems drive large-scale collaboration
Reputation systems play a crucial role in facilitating large-scale cooperation. Indirect reciprocity, the mechanism by which individuals cooperate based on reputation, enables cooperation on a larger scale.
To verify this we look at games in which players participate in a Public Goods Game (PGG) and a Mutual Aid Game (MAG).
- The PGG simulates a situation in which individuals can contribute to a collective good, but in which it is individually rational not to contribute (free-riding).
- In the MAG, players can help each other, whereby it costs the helper something and it brings something to the recipient.
The model shows that an evolutionarily stable strategy is to help only those who have contributed to the Public Goods Game (PGG). This means that a good reputation in the PGG leads to more helping in the MAG. In this way, reputation functions as a mechanism to reward cooperation and punish free-riding.
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Cooperation within networks
Universal cooperation
Universal cooperation becomes viable as groups become more interconnected.
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Reputation at stake
When participants interact with ingroup members more than they do with outgroup members, which is empirically more realistic, then local cooperation undermines global cooperation.
| ... individuals belong to a smaller, “local” group embedded within a larger, “global” group. This introduces competing strategies for conditionally aiding others based on their cooperative behavior in the local or global group. Our analyses reveal that the reputation for cooperation in the smaller local group can undermine cooperation in the larger global group, even when the theoretical maximum payoffs are higher in the larger global group. This model reveals that indirect reciprocity alone is insufficient for stabilizing large-scale human cooperation because cooperation at one scale can be considered defection at another. These results deepen the puzzle of large-scale human cooperation. (1) |
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| (1) | Indirect reciprocity undermines indirect reciprocity destabilizing large-scale cooperation - E. Snell - PNAS - 2024 |
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Limitations of reputation systems in large-scale collaboration
Conflicting reputations
When individuals belong to multiple groups, each with their own reputation systems, this can lead to conflicting reputations, where an individual has a good reputation in one group and a bad reputation in another.
- This is illustrated by the example of someone who donates to a local environmental organisation (good reputation in the local group) but invests in a company that pollutes the environment (bad reputation on a larger scale).
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Dominance of small-scale cooperation
When players belong to a local group and a global group, they show that cooperation in the local group is often more stable than cooperation in the global group, even when the potential benefits of cooperation on a larger scale are higher.
- This is because cooperation in the local group can be enforced more directly and because free-riding in the local group can be punished more easily.
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The Paradox of Diversity in collaboration
On the one hand, diversity is essential for innovation because it leads to the recombination of different ideas and perspectives. The cross-pollination of knowledge can lead to groundbreaking discoveries and technologies.
On the other hand, diversity can also be divisive. With a shared understanding, common goals, and a common language, the flow of ideas is impeded, which helps collaboration and innovation. Specialisation, a form of diversity, allows society to transcend the capabilities of a single brain. People become experts in specific areas, leading to increased collective intelligence. However, this specialisation also creates silos, where specialists have difficulty communicating and coordinating with each other.
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The key to resolving this paradox lies in finding a balance between diversity and unityː
Optimal assimilation
Some aspects of diversity are more important than others. Determining which forms of diversity are essential for collaboration and which are less relevant is crucial. For example, a common language is necessary, while individual food preferences are less important. In addition, it is essential to create a safe environment where people feel free to share unorthodox ideas.
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Translators and bridges
Interdisciplinary translators trained in multiple disciplines can bridge the gap between different specialists. They can translate the language of one discipline into the language of another, enabling collaboration and knowledge sharing.
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Division into subgroups
Innovation can be stimulated by dividing teams into smaller, more homogeneous groups that collaborate and compete internally. This promotes internal cohesion while encouraging competition and diversity at a higher level.
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