scholarly journals Reputation and punishment sustain cooperation in the optional public goods game

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1838) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirsendu Podder ◽  
Simone Righi ◽  
Francesca Pancotto
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Honest Signalling ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Experimental And Theoretical Studies

Cooperative behaviour has been extensively studied as a choice between cooperation and defection. However, the possibility to not participate is also frequently available. This type of problem can be studied through the optional public goods game. The introduction of the ‘Loner’ strategy' allows players to withdraw from the game, which leads to a cooperator–defector–loner cycle. While pro-social punishment can help increase cooperation, anti-social punishment—where defectors punish cooperators—causes its downfall in both experimental and theoretical studies. In this paper, we introduce social norms that allow agents to condition their behaviour to the reputation of their peers. We benchmark this with respect both to the standard optional public goods game and to the variant where all types of punishment are allowed. We find that a social norm imposing a more moderate reputational penalty for opting out than for defecting increases cooperation. When, besides reputation, punishment is also possible, the two mechanisms work synergically under all social norms that do not assign to loners a strictly worse reputation than to defectors. Under this latter set-up, the high levels of cooperation are sustained by conditional strategies, which largely reduce the use of pro-social punishment and almost completely eliminate anti-social punishment. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.

scholarly journals Defectors’ intolerance of others promotes cooperation in the repeated public goods game with opting out

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlastimil Křivan ◽  
Ross Cressman
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Nash Equilibria ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Strong Argument ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
The Common

Abstract The theoretical and experimental research on opting out (also called conditional dissociation) in social dilemmas has concentrated on the effect this behavior has on the level of cooperation when used against defectors. The intuition behind this emphasis is based on the common property of social dilemmas that individuals are worse off the more their opponents defect. However, this article shows clearly that other opting out mechanisms are better at increasing cooperative behavior. In fact, by analyzing the stable Nash equilibria for the repeated multi-player public goods game with opting out, our results provide a strong argument that the best opting out rule is one whereby the only groups that voluntarily stay together between rounds are those that are homogeneous (i.e., those groups that are either all cooperators or all defectors), when these groups stay together for enough rounds. This outcome emerges when defectors are completely intolerant of individuals who cooperate (e.g., defectors exhibit xenophobic behavior toward cooperators) and so opt out whenever their group has a cooperator in it. The strong preference by defectors to be with like-minded individuals causes all heterogeneous groups to disband after one round.

Reciprocity and Social Norms: Short- and Long-Run Crowding Out Effects of Financial Incentives

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-213
Author(s):  
Jinhua Zhao ◽  
◽  
John M. Kerr ◽  
Maria Knight Lapinski ◽  
Robert Shupp ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Intrinsic Motivation ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Using Data

We link the reciprocity model of Falk and Fischbacher (2006) with the theory of normative social behavior to study how financial incentives crowd out intrinsic motivation in both the short and long runs. Using data from a lab-based repeated public goods game, we find strong evidence in support of the reciprocity model and crowding out effects both when the payment is in place and after it stops. When the payment program is in place, subjects become less sensitive to reciprocity, perceive less kindness in others’ contributions, and care less about others’ welfare. The overall decrease in motivation to reciprocate reduces the effectiveness of the payment program by almost 50%. About 20% of the crowding out effect persists after the payment stops, and the reciprocity mechanism explains over three quarters of the long-run crowding out effect.

scholarly journals Humans prefer to copy success rather than the social norm in a cooperative game

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell Burton-Chellew ◽  
Victoire D'Amico
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Cooperative Game ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Success

It is often claimed that human cooperation is special, and can only be explained by gene-culture co-evolution favouring a desire to follow pro-social norms. If this is true then individuals should be motivated to both observe, and copy, common social behaviours (social norms). Previous economic experiments, using the public goods game, have suggested individuals are motivated to follow social norms. However, natural selection should favour individuals whom prefer to discover and copy successful behaviours, and previous experiments have often not shown examples of success. Here we test, on 489 participants, if individuals are more motivated to learn about, and more likely to copy, either common or successful behaviours. Using the same cooperative game and instructions, we find that individuals are primarily motivated to copy successful rather than common behaviours. Consequently, social learning disfavours costly cooperation, even when individuals can observe a stable, pro-social, norm. Our results suggest that human social learning mechanisms have evolved to maximize personal success, and call into question explanations for human cooperation based on cultural evolution and/or a desire to follow social norms.

scholarly journals Humans prefer to copy success rather than the social norm in a cooperative game

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell Burton-Chellew ◽  
Victoire D'Amico
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Cooperative Game ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Success

It is often claimed that human cooperation is special, and can only be explained by gene-culture co-evolution favouring a desire to follow pro-social norms. If this is true then individuals should be motivated to both observe, and copy, common social behaviours (social norms). Previous economic experiments, using the public goods game, have suggested individuals are motivated to follow social norms. However, natural selection should favour individuals whom prefer to discover and copy successful behaviours, and previous experiments have often not shown examples of success. Here we test, on 489 participants, if individuals are more motivated to learn about, and more likely to copy, either common or successful behaviours. Using the same cooperative game and instructions, we find that individuals are primarily motivated to copy successful rather than common behaviours. Consequently, social learning disfavours costly cooperation, even when individuals can observe a stable, pro-social, norm. Our results suggest that human social learning mechanisms have evolved to maximize personal success, and call into question explanations for human cooperation based on cultural evolution and/or a desire to follow social norms.

Donating money is not the only way to sustain cooperation in public goods game

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 1750149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tong Chen ◽  
Zheng-Hong Wu ◽  
Le Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
The Other ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Time Model ◽  
Research Cooperation ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Cooperation Level ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Better Than

Most of the previous studies research cooperation mainly based on donating money in social public goods games. Owing to the lack of income, some people prefer to donate time instead of money to promote the activity, in our daily life. Motivated by this fact, we here investigate the influence of the encouragement of donating time on the evolution of cooperation based on village opera. In our study, we set up two models: one is money-only model (MOM). Donating money is the only choice in MOM. The other is money–time model (MTM). Besides donating money, donating time is an alternative in MTM. Through numerical simulations, we find that compared to MOM, MTM has a faster speed to reach cooperation equilibrium and cost advantage to sustain the same cooperation level, without the effects of income, reputation, satisfaction, emotion and maximum nonmonetary input. However, it should be noted that MTM is better than MOM in a moderate interval of general budget [Formula: see text]. Our results provide stark evidence that the encouragement of donating time can promote and sustain cooperation better than only donating money.

Social Norms and the Environment

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 405-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karine Nyborg
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Environmental Economics ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Voluntary Contributions ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Stable Equilibria

Social norms affect environmental quality. But what exactly is a social norm? Environmental economists studying the topic draw on diverse scholarly traditions and may not have the same phenomenon in mind when using the concept. For example, social norms may refer to common, but not necessarily socially approved, behaviors; to internalized ethical rules; or to one of several equilibria in a coordination game. I first discuss some of the definitions used in the environmental economics literature. Then, I outline a simple framework for analysis of voluntary contributions to public goods. Using this framework, I illustrate differences and similarities between altruism, moral norms, and social norms and discuss implications for environmental policies. In particular, when a social norm represents one of several stable equilibria, policy can potentially invoke abrupt and dramatic behavioral changes.

scholarly journals Evolution of Cooperation in Public Goods Games with Stochastic Opting-Out

Games ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Ginsberg ◽  
Feng Fu
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Return On Investment ◽  
Adaptive Dynamics ◽  
Finite Size ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Finite Populations ◽  
Neutral Drift ◽  
Opting Out

We study the evolution of cooperation in group interactions where players are randomly drawn from well-mixed populations of finite size to participate in a public goods game. However, due to the possibility of unforeseen circumstances, each player has a fixed probability of being unable to participate in the game, unlike previous models which assume voluntary participation. We first study how prescribed stochastic opting-out affects cooperation in finite populations, and then generalize for the limiting case of large populations. Because we use a pairwise comparison updating rule, our results apply to both genetic and behavioral evolution mechanisms. Moreover, in the model, cooperation is favored by natural selection over both neutral drift and defection if the return on investment exceeds a threshold value depending on the population size, the game size, and a player’s probability of opting-out. Our analysis further shows that, due to the stochastic nature of the opting-out in finite populations, the threshold of return on investment needed for natural selection to favor cooperation is actually greater than the one corresponding to compulsory games with the equal expected game size. We also use adaptive dynamics to study the co-evolution of cooperation and opting-out behavior. Indeed, given rare mutations minutely different from the resident population, an analysis based on adaptive dynamics suggests that over time the population will tend towards complete defection and non-participation, and subsequently cooperators abstaining from the public goods game will stand a chance to emerge by neutral drift, thereby paving the way for the rise of participating cooperators. Nevertheless, increasing the probability of non-participation decreases the rate at which the population tends towards defection when participating. Our work sheds light on understanding how stochastic opting-out emerges in the first place and on its role in the evolution of cooperation.

Sanctioning as a social norm: Expectations of non-strategic sanctioning in a public goods game experiment

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 919-928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Vyrastekova ◽  
Yukihiko Funaki ◽  
Ai Takeuchi
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Public Goods Game
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