Theory of Cooperation

Abstract

Cooperation is defined as any adaptation that has evolved, at least in part, to increase the reproductive success of the actor's social partners. Inclusive fitness theory reveals that cooperation can be favoured by natural selection owing to either direct fitness benefits (mutually beneficial cooperation) or indirect fitness benefits (altruistic cooperation). Direct fitness benefits can arise as a simple by‐product of cooperation, or else owing to the existence of enforcement mechanisms, which may be fixed or conditioned according to the individual's cooperative behaviour. Indirect fitness benefits can arise when cooperation occurs between genetically similar individuals, as a consequence of limited dispersal, kin discrimination or greenbeard mechanisms. These theoretical mechanisms are illustrated with empirical examples, from laboratory experiments to field studies. Key Concepts The function of Darwinian adaptation is to maximise the organism's inclusive fitness. Inclusive fitness describes how well an organism transmits copies of its genes to future generations. Direct fitness is the part of inclusive fitness that comes from the organism's own reproductive success. Indirect fitness is the part of inclusive fitness that comes from the reproductive success of the organism's genetic relatives. Cooperation is any adaptation whose function is, at least in part, to increase the reproductive success of a social partner. Cooperation is mutually beneficial if the actor also benefits and altruistic if the actor suffers a net loss of reproductive success. Mutually beneficial cooperation is favoured by direct fitness benefits. Direct fitness benefits can arise as a by‐product or owing to enforcement mechanisms. Altruistic cooperation is favoured by indirect fitness benefits. Indirect fitness benefits can arise as a consequence of limited dispersal, kin discrimination or greenbeard mechanisms.

Scaffolding individuality: coordination, cooperation, collaboration and community

“…Evolutionary anthropologists study the evolution of cooperation in humans [ 2 ], and evolutionary biologists since Darwin study the evolution of cooperation in non-human and human organisms [ 3 – 7 ]. A reviewer pointed out a range of definitions of cooperation in evolutionary biology from ‘any adaptation that has evolved, at least in part, to increase the reproductive success of the actor's social partners’ [ 8 ] to ‘social interactions characterized by costs to an actor and benefits to other conspecifics’ [ 9 ], and in social psychology as ‘those social interactions in which actors incur in some costs to altruistically provide benefits to a partner’ (quoting the reviewer). While we agree that cooperation as understood in these fields usually involves a cost–benefit interaction, and thus, at least in that respect, the definitions seem similar to one another, notice that in the first case (adaptation), cooperation is defined by an outcome or product, in the second case by a condition (on a process or product), and in the third case by a process but with conditions on the outcome.…”

Human Evolution and the Christian Call to Love

“…The behavior of parents sacrificing for their children's benefit is an obvious example of altruistic behavior that can be explained by inclusive fitness theory. The theory has also been used to explain social behavior in humans and other animals (Gardner, Griffin, and West 2016).…”

Non-kin selection enhances complexity in cooperation: A unified quantitative law

“…Kin selection theory, which is encapsulated in Hamilton's rule [9]: rbc > 0 (r is the genetic relatedness between actor and recipient, b and c are benefits and costs of cooperation, respectively) dominates thinking in current evolutionary biology. The theory argues that cooperation will evolve if the benefits produced by an individual's cooperative behavior lead to individuals with genes that increase their inclusive fitness [9,30]. Such an explanation can only account for the maintenance of cooperation among genetic relatives, especially in animal societies [31][32][33].…”