The strategy method conflates confusion with conditional cooperation in public goods games: evidence from large scale replications

The strategy method is often used in public goods games to measure individuals’ willingness to cooperate depending on the level of cooperation by others (conditional cooperation). However, while the strategy method is informative, it risks being suggestive and inducing elevated levels of conditional cooperation that are not motivated by concerns for fairness, especially in uncertain or confused participants. Here we make 845 participants complete the strategy method two times, once with human and once with computerized groupmates. Cooperation with computers cannot rationally be motivated by concerns for fairness. Worryingly, 69% of participants conditionally cooperated with computers, whereas only 7% conditionally cooperated with humans while not cooperating with computers. Overall, 83% of participants cooperated with computers, contributing 89% as much as towards humans. Results from games with computers present a serious problem for measuring social behaviors.

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

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.

Decoupling cooperation and punishment in humans shows that punishment is not an altruistic trait

Economic experiments have suggested that cooperative humans will altruistically match local levels of cooperation (conditional cooperation) and pay to punish non-cooperators (altruistic punishment). Evolutionary models have suggested that if altruists punish non-altruists this could favour the evolution of costly helping behaviours (cooperation) among strangers. An often-key requirement is that helping behaviours and punishing behaviours form one single conjoined trait (strong reciprocity). Previous economics experiments have provided support for the hypothesis that punishment and cooperation form one conjoined, altruistically motivated, trait. However, such a conjoined trait may be evolutionarily unstable, and previous experiments have confounded a fear of being punished with being surrounded by cooperators, two factors that could favour cooperation. Here, we experimentally decouple the fear of punishment from a cooperative environment and allow cooperation and punishment behaviour to freely separate (420 participants). We show, that if a minority of individuals is made immune to punishment, they (i) learn to stop cooperating on average despite being surrounded by high levels of cooperation, contradicting the idea of conditional cooperation and (ii) often continue to punish, ‘hypocritically’, showing that cooperation and punishment do not form one, altruistically motivated, linked trait.

Turn taking is not restricted by task specialisation but does not facilitate equality in offspring provisioning

Sexual conflict arises when two individuals invest in their common offspring because both individuals benefit when their partner invests more. Conditional cooperation is a theoretical concept that could resolve this conflict. Here, parents are thought to motivate each other to contribute to provisioning visits by following the rules of turn taking, which results in equal and efficient investment. However, parents have other tasks besides provisioning, which might hinder taking turns. To investigate restrictions by other care tasks and whether turn taking can be used to match investment, we manipulated brooding duration in female blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) during the early nestling phase by changing nest box temperature. As expected, females subjected to cold conditions brooded longer than females under warm conditions. Yet, contrary to our prediction, females had similar visit rates in both treatments, which suggests that females in the cold treatment invested more overall. In addition, the females’ turn taking level was higher in the more demanding cold condition (and the calculated randomised turn taking levels of females did not differ), hence females don’t seem to be restricted in their turn taking strategy by other care tasks. However, males did not seem to match the females’ turn taking levels because they did not adjust their visit rates. Thus, level of turn taking was not restricted by an other sex-specific task in females and did not facilitate a greater investment by their male partners.

Spillover Effects of Institutions on Cooperative Behavior, Preferences, and Beliefs

Most institutions are limited in scope. We study experimentally how enforcement institutions affect behavior, preferences, and beliefs beyond their direct influence over the behaviors they control. Groups play two identical public good games, with cooperation institutionally enforced in one game. Institutions generally have economically significant positive spillover effects to the unregulated game. We also observe that institutions enhance conditional cooperation preferences and beliefs about others’ cooperativeness, suggesting that both factors are drivers of observed spillover effects. In additional treatments, we provide evidence for several factors, including characteristics of institutions, that enhance or limit the effectiveness and scope of spillover effects. (JEL C92, D02, D83, D91, H41)

Human Cooperation and the Crises of Climate Change, COVID-19, and Misinformation

Contemporary society is facing many social dilemmas—including climate change, COVID-19, and misinformation—characterized by a conflict between short-term self-interest and longer-term collective interest. The climate crisis requires paying costs today to benefit distant others (and oneself) in the future. The COVID-19 crisis requires the less vulnerable to pay costs to benefit the more vulnerable in the face of great uncertainty. The misinformation crisis requires investing effort to assess truth and abstain from spreading attractive falsehoods. Addressing these crises requires an understanding of human cooperation. To that end, we present ( a) an overview of mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation, including mechanisms based on similarity and interaction; ( b) a discussion of how reputation can incentivize cooperation via conditional cooperation and signaling; and ( c) a review of social preferences that undergird the proximate psychology of cooperation, including positive regard for others, parochialism, and egalitarianism. We discuss the three focal crises facing our society through the lens of cooperation, emphasizing how cooperation research can inform our efforts to address them. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Limited memory optimizes cooperation in social dilemma experiments

Cooperation is one of the key collective behaviours of human society. Despite discoveries of several social mechanisms underpinning cooperation, relatively little is known about how our neural functions affect cooperative behaviours. Here, we study the effect of a main neural function, working-memory capacity, on cooperation in repeated Prisoner's Dilemma experiments. Our experimental paradigm overcomes the obstacles in measuring and changing subjects' working-memory capacity. We find that the optimal cooperation level occurs when subjects remember two previous rounds of information, and cooperation increases abruptly from no memory capacity to minimal memory capacity. The results can be explained by memory-based conditional cooperation of subjects. We propose evolutionary models based on replicator dynamics and Markov processes, respectively, which are in good agreement with experimental results of different memory capacities. Our experimental findings differ from previous hypotheses and predictions of existent models and theories, and suggest a neural basis and evolutionary roots of cooperation beyond cultural influences.

COVID-19 and Behavioral Economics: Certain Aspects of the Causes of Irrational Behaviour During a Pandemic

The aim of this article is to reveal the main reasons for the irrational behaviour of economic agents during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in terms of behavioural economics and opportunities for change such a behaviour.The article reveals the approaches that were used in 2020 and continue to be used today as the main ones to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection. Despite the existence of such prescriptions, the infection continues to spread and causes negative socio-economic consequences.Thus, the main reasons, the resistance of citizens to the measures recommended by governments around the world and the manifestation of deviant behaviour among the seemingly “rational” economic agents were analyzed.The main reasons and possible factors for changing such a behaviour are the postulates of behavioural economics, such as the effect of reinforcement effect, conservative bias, confirmation bias, conditional cooperation, the preference of beliefs consonance.In addition, this paper provides a brief overview of some post-material values of Ukrainian society based on global research and offers an assessment of the dependence of these values on the incidence of COVID-19 and an explanation in terms of behavioural economics.The article notes that the presence of certain established views on the “normality” of preventive antivirus measures may affect the propensity or the lack of propensity to adhere to the necessary protective behaviour by economic agents.The research methods are descriptive, analytical, methods of synthesis and comparison. As a result of the analysis, the article proposes a comprehensive approach to men’s behaviour during the pandemic according to behavioural economics.The study concludes that the main task to improve the effectiveness of preventive measures for the spread of COVID-19 today is to understand the causes of irrational behaviour in new circumstances in terms of behavioural economics and apply the theory of “pushing” or “nudging” to form positive social economic change. It is suggested to use this paper for further and deeper practical research of certain aspects of changing people`s behaviour for better work effectiveness and wellbeing. JEL classіfіcatіon: D03, A13