The Cognitive Foundations of Cooperation

Abstract

Why do some individuals cooperate with their fellow human beings while others take advantage of them? The human drive for cooperation and altruism is one of the most powerful forces shaping our society, but there is an enormous behavioral variance in individual behavior. At the same time, whether it is intuitive to behave in a cooperative manner or whether such behaviors are calculated deeds remains an unanswered question. Indeed, recent empirical investigations regarding the spontaneity of human cooperation have found mixed evidence, possibly due to a failure to induce compliance in the behavioral manipulations employed. We conducted a laboratory experiment inducing intuitive and deliberative behavior through gradual economic incentives that ensure compliance. To account for individual heterogeneity, we independently measured social value orientation and aversion to interpersonal (strategic) uncertainty. We find that these measures determine the intrinsic predisposition towards cooperation. Subjects with more altruistic social values or a higher tolerance towards interpersonal uncertainty are more cooperative. Crucially, we find causal evidence that there is no universal default mode of behavior. Rather, intuition enhances intrinsic predispositions, while deliberation moderates them towards socially acceptable behavior. That is, subjects with a higher (resp. lower) predisposition towards cooperation became more (resp. less) cooperative under time pressure compared with time delay. JEL Classification: D01 • D81 • C9

Cooperation, Response Time, and Social Value Orientation: A Meta-Analysis

“…However, our second result would correspond to a positive effect of deliberation on cooperation among individualist subjects. While this interpretation pairs well with a recent working paper finding that time delay has a positive effect on cooperation among individualist subjects (Alós-Ferrer & Garagnani, 2020), it goes against the prediction of the SHH that deliberation should have no effect on cooperation among individualist. This observation suggests that future work is needed, on both the empirical and the theoretical grounds, shedding light on what other factors -in addition to decision conflict -may explain the relationship between response time and cooperation.…”

The Dual-Process Approach to Human Sociality: A Review

“…Another important question regards the role of potential moderators. As suggested by two correlational studies and one causal study, the effect of cognitive manipulations on cooperation might depend on the type of participants, such that pro-socials might become more cooperative when deciding intuitively (Mischkowski & Glöckner, 2016;Alós-Ferrer & Garagnani, 2018), whereas individualists might be unaffected (Mischkowski & Glöckner, 2016;Alós-Ferrer & Garagnani, 2018) or even become more selfish (Yamagishi et al, 2017). Alós-Ferrer and Garagnani (2018), in particular, proposed that time pressure makes people more likely to behave according to their social value orientation, while time delay makes people readapt this initial response towards what they believe to be the norm in the given situation.…”

What are you calling intuitive? Subject heterogeneity as a driver of response times in an impunity game

“…The same, say, time limit can be enough for some subjects to make a System II response while simultaneously being extremely constraining for others. This heterogeneity has been recently shown to be an important moderator in interpreting results from these experiments (Alos-Ferrer and Garagnani, 2020).…”

“…The SHH has been supported by studies in the realm of cooperation (Rand, 2016(Rand, , 2019, honesty (Capraro, 2017), and reciprocity (Hallsson et al, 2018). However, the SHH has been challenged by other studies and meta-analyses which do not support the intuitive nature of cooperation (Alos-Ferrer and Garagnani, 2020;Tinghög et al, 2013;Bouwmeester et al, 2017) In most of these studies, the identification of 'intuitive' replies is obtained via time constraints, cognitive load, ego depletion, or procedural priming (for a thorough review, see Capraro, 2019). A time-constrained (cognitive loaded, depleted, appropriately primed) individual is assumed to rely more on intuitive, System I than on deliberate, System II cognitive strategies.…”