Strategies for cooperation in biological markets, especially for humans

Barclay, Pat

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.02.002

Cited by 283 publications

(318 citation statements)

References 120 publications

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“…It has been argued that a good reputation could not only allow for partner choice in cooperative interactions or receiving more help in future interactions (Alexander, 1987;Roberts, 1998), but also that it might be linked to the actor's quality (Zahavi, 1977), serving as an honest signal conveying information on the actor's resources, capabilities or reproductive quality for example (Barclay, 2013;Fehrler & Przepiorka, 2013;Tognetti et al, 2014). Consequently, costs of generosity in collective action dilemmas might be outweighed in other various contexts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a straightforward reputational mechanism enhances cooperation frequency and allows cooperative members of a group to recognise and trust each other (Nowak & Sigmund, 1998;Wedekind & Braithwaite, 2002;Wedekind & Milinski, 2000;Yoeli et al, 2013) and to benefit from choosing their partners (Fu et al, 2008;Sylwester & Roberts, 2010), creating a biological market based on cooperativeness, i.e. competition among potential partners to be chosen for social interactions (Barclay, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups

Santos

Wedekind

2015

Evolution and Human Behavior

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Citation: dos Santos M., Wedekind C. 2015. Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups. Evolution and Human Behavior 36(1): 59-64.The content of this preprint is identical with the published paper except from small edits made at proofs. AbstractCooperation among unrelated individuals can arise if decisions to help others can be based on reputation. While working for dyadic interactions, reputation-use in social dilemmas involving many individuals (e.g. public goods games) becomes increasingly difficult as groups become larger and errors more frequent. Reputation is therefore believed to have played a minor role for the evolution of cooperation in collective action dilemmas such as those faced by early humans. Here, we show in computer simulations that a reputation system based on punitive actions can overcome these problems and, compared to reputation system based on generous actions, (i) is more likely to lead to the evolution of cooperation in sizable groups, (ii) more effectively sustains cooperation within larger groups, and (iii) is more robust to errors in reputation assessment. Punishment and punishment reputation could therefore have played crucial roles in the evolution of cooperation within larger groups of humans.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups

Santos

Wedekind

2015

Evolution and Human Behavior

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“…One 25 way this can be achieved is if helpful individuals are preferred as partners: giving players the option to either avoid bad partners or actively choose good ones increases cooperation, compared to interactions where individuals are forced to interact with one another [1][2][3][4][5]. Biological market theory [5][6][7] predicts that individuals prefer the 'best' possible partners for interactions. But what does 'best' actually mean?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But what does 'best' actually mean? In the context of cooperation, the best partners are those who are most 30 able and most willing to confer benefits on others [7][8][9]. In hunter-gatherer societies, for example, those who hunt successfully and are also willing to share the spoils with others form more profitable relationships than those who are successful but do not share [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partner choice versus punishment in human Prisoner’s Dilemmas

Barclay

Raihani

2016

Evolution and Human Behavior

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Partner choice is an important force underpinning cooperation in humans and other animals. 10Nevertheless, the mechanisms individuals use to evaluate and discriminate among partners who vary across different dimensions are poorly understood. Generally, individuals are expected to prefer partners who are both able and willing to invest in cooperation but how do individuals prioritise ability over willingness to invest when these characteristics are opposed to one another?We used a modified Dictator Game to tackle this question. Choosers evaluated partners varying in 15 quality (proxied by wealth) and fairness, in conditions when wealth was relatively stable or liable to change. When both partners were equally fair (or unfair), choosers typically preferred the richer partner. Nevertheless, when asked to choose between a rich-stingy or a poor-fair partner, choosers prioritised fairness over wealth -with this preference being particularly pronounced when wealth was unstable. The implications of these findings for real-world partner choice are discussed. 20

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“…A reputation based on punishment, for example, may have played a key role in the evolution of punishment that promotes cooperation within groups (Brandt et al, 2003;Gardner and West, 2004;Hilbe and Sigmund, 2010;dos Santos et al, 2011dos Santos et al, , 2013. Various kinds of reputation may therefore affect partner choice (Fu et al, 2008;Sylwester and Roberts, 2010) and may thereby create a biological market (Barclay, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposure to superfluous information reduces cooperation and increases antisocial punishment in reputation-based interactions

2014

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Human cooperation is often based on reputation gained from previous interactions with third parties. Such reputation can be built on generous or punitive actions, and both, one's own reputation and the reputation of others have been shown to influence decision making in experimental games that control for confounding variables. Here we test how reputation-based cooperation and punishment react to a disruption of the cognitive processing in different kinds of helping games with observers. Saying a few superfluous words before each interaction was used to possibly interfere with working memory. In a first set of experiments, where reputation could only be based on generosity, the disturbance reduced the frequency of cooperation and lowered mean final payoffs. In a second set of experiments where reputation could only be based on punishment, disturbance increased the frequency of antisocial punishment (i.e., of punishing those who helped) and reduced the frequency of punishing defectors. Our findings suggest that working memory can easily be constraining in reputation-based interactions within experimental games, even if these games are based on a few simple rules with a visual display that provides all the information the subjects need to play the strategies predicted from current theory. Our findings also highlight a weakness of experimental games, namely that they can be very sensitive to environmental variation and that quantitative conclusions about antisocial punishment or other behavioral strategies can easily be misleading.

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Strategies for cooperation in biological markets, especially for humans

Cited by 283 publications

References 120 publications

Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups

Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups

Partner choice versus punishment in human Prisoner’s Dilemmas

Exposure to superfluous information reduces cooperation and increases antisocial punishment in reputation-based interactions

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