scholarly journals Social learning and the demise of costly cooperation in humans

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1853) ◽  
pp. 20170067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew ◽  
Claire El Mouden ◽  
Stuart A. West
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Experimental Testing ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Public Goods Games

Humans have a sophisticated ability to learn from others, termed social learning, which has allowed us to spread over the planet, construct complex societies, and travel to the moon. It has been hypothesized that social learning has played a pivotal role in making human societies cooperative, by favouring cooperation even when it is not favoured by genetical selection. However, this hypothesis lacks direct experimental testing, and the opposite prediction has also been made, that social learning disfavours cooperation. We experimentally tested how different aspects of social learning affect the level of cooperation in public-goods games. We found that: (i) social information never increased cooperation and usually led to decreased cooperation; (ii) cooperation was lowest when individuals could observe how successful individuals behaved; and (iii) cooperation declined because individuals preferred to copy successful individuals, who cooperated less, rather than copy common behaviours. Overall, these results suggest that individuals use social information to try and improve their own success, and that this can lead to lower levels of cooperation.

Beyond Kith and Kin Culture and the Scale of Human Cooperation

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-122
Author(s):  
Robert Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Changing Environments ◽  
Worldwide Web ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Large Groups

This chapter details Robert Boyd's account of social learning and cumulative cultural evolution to illuminate how societies adapt to changing environments and develop ever more sophisticated tools and technology. Humans' ability to learn by imitation and their evolved trusting psychology are used to explain the centrality of social norms, and to explain why and how humans have for so long been “supercooperators.” Even in foraging societies, the extent of human cooperation vastly exceeds that of any other species. Ultimately, millennia of cumulative cultural evolution have helped create a vast “worldwide web of specialization and exchange.” Humans are unique in that “people cooperate in large groups of almost unrelated individuals to provide public goods.” Cooperation in large groups “requires systems of norms enforced by sanctions.” In larger and more complex societies, cooperation and the provision of public goods depend crucially on coercive sanctioning by third parties: institutions such as police and courts.

scholarly journals Selfish learning is more important than fair-minded conditional cooperation in public-goods games

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell Burton-Chellew ◽  
Claire Guérin
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Negligible Effect ◽  
Conditional Cooperation ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Economic Experiments ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Learning Hypothesis ◽  
Evolutionary Explanations

Why does human cooperation often unravel in economic experiments despite a promising start? Previous studies have interpreted the decline as the reaction of disappointed cooperators retaliating in response to lesser cooperators (conditional cooperation). This interpretation has been considered evidence of a uniquely human form of cooperation, motivated by altruistic concerns for fairness and requiring special evolutionary explanations. However, experiments have typically shown individuals information about both their personal payoff and information about the decisions of their groupmates (social information). Showing both confounds explanations based on conditional cooperation with explanations based on individuals learning how to better play the game. Here we experimentally decouple these two forms of information, and thus these two learning processes, in public goods games involving 616 Swiss university participants. We find that payoff information leads to a greater decline, supporting a payoff-based learning hypothesis. In contrast, social information has small or negligible effect, contradicting the conditional cooperation hypothesis. We also find widespread evidence of both confusion and selfish motives, suggesting that human cooperation is maybe not so unique after all.

Pool punishment in public goods games: How do sanctioners’ incentives affect us?

2021 ◽  
Vol 185 ◽  
pp. 513-537
Author(s):  
Adriana Alventosa ◽  
Alberto Antonioni ◽  
Penélope Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Goods Games

Public goods games on random hyperbolic graphs with mixing

2021 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 110720
Author(s):  
Maja Duh ◽  
Marko Gosak ◽  
Matjaž Perc
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Hyperbolic Graphs

Group preferential selection promotes cooperation in spatial public goods game

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (11) ◽  
pp. 1450062 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong-Bin Zhang ◽  
Hong Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Square Lattice ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Learning Mechanism ◽  
Preferential Selection ◽  
Cooperative Evolution ◽  
Public Goods Games

We study the evolution of cooperation in public goods games on the square lattice, focusing on the co-player learning mechanism based on the preferential selection that are brought about by wealthy information of groups where participants collect and search for potential imitators from those groups. We find that co-player learning mechanism based on the choice of weighted group can lead to the promotion of public cooperation by means of the information of wealthy groups that is obtained by participants, and after that the partial choice of public goods groups is enhanced with the tunable preferential parameter. Our results highlight that the learning interactions is not solely confined to the restricted connection among players, but co-players of wealthy groups have the opportunity to be as a role model in the promotion of cooperative evolution. Moreover, we also find the size of learning affects the choice of distant players, cooperators (defectors) having more paths to exploit the phalanx of opponents to survive when the value of preferential parameter is small. Besides, the extinction thresholds of cooperators and defectors for different values of noise are also investigated.

scholarly journals Avoiding or restricting defectors in public goods games?

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (103) ◽  
pp. 20141203 ◽  
Author(s):  
The Anh Han ◽  
Luís Moniz Pereira ◽  
Tom Lenaerts
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Full Agreement ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
The Common ◽  
Strategic Solution

When creating a public good, strategies or mechanisms are required to handle defectors. We first show mathematically and numerically that prior agreements with posterior compensations provide a strategic solution that leads to substantial levels of cooperation in the context of public goods games, results that are corroborated by available experimental data. Notwithstanding this success, one cannot, as with other approaches, fully exclude the presence of defectors, raising the question of how they can be dealt with to avoid the demise of the common good. We show that both avoiding creation of the common good, whenever full agreement is not reached, and limiting the benefit that disagreeing defectors can acquire, using costly restriction mechanisms, are relevant choices. Nonetheless, restriction mechanisms are found the more favourable, especially in larger group interactions. Given decreasing restriction costs, introducing restraining measures to cope with public goods free-riding issues is the ultimate advantageous solution for all participants, rather than avoiding its creation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document