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Indirect reciprocity is a strong driver of reputation-based cooperation and previous studies have offered ample evidence as to when and how it guides cooperation towards others. However, the current empirical literature suffers from mixed evidence about the realm of indirect reciprocity; some studies showed that people assume that in-group members, but not out-group members, belong to the same system of indirect reciprocity and they, thus, display reputation-based cooperation only towards in-group members (i.e., bounded indirect reciprocity). Other studies found that people display reputation-based cooperation towards out-group members as well (i.e., unbounded indirect reciprocity). It thus remains unclear when indirect reciprocity is bounded by group membership. We argue that the realm of indirect reciprocity is conditional to the presence of cues of reputational consequences (i.e., consequences of immediate cooperation). We further propose a new perspective, the dynamic indirect reciprocity perspective, which integrates the bounded and unbounded indirect reciprocity perspectives. We conducted a preregistered study (N = 1800) and found partial evidence for the perspective. First, between-condition differences in cooperation were very small and were not in line with the perspective. However, exploratory analyses on psychological underpinnings of intergroup cooperation revealed that a reputation manipulation (i.e., group membership knowledge manipulation) increased cooperation via increased expected cooperation from an immediate partner regardless of their group membership when the cue of reputational consequences was present. Yet, when the immediate partner was an in-group member, this indirect effect was observed when the cue of reputational consequences was absent. Overall, our findings underscore a new general principle of indirect reciprocity: the cue of reputational consequences determines the perceived realm of indirect reciprocity and influences whether or not individuals condition their cooperation to the group membership of immediate interaction partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of indirect reciprocity and its potential to foster large-scale cooperation. The authors present a theoretical model in which agents interact across two stages, choosing actions based on cooperation with their own group or with other groups. The authors conclude that indirect reciprocity alone is insufficient for stabilizing large-scale human cooperation. However, new research suggests that when interactions across group boundaries become possible, indirect reciprocity can promote large-scale cooperation. The article also addresses the questions of whether people actually implement conditional reputation strategies when interacting with out-group members and to what degree belonging to a group restricts interaction frequency with out-group members. The research shows that people do provide aid to both in-group and out-group members and that intergroup cooperation can be mutually reinforced. The article emphasizes that belonging to a group does not prevent interactions with out-group members and that the likelihood of such interactions increases with larger group sizes and growing social mobility. Overall, the findings suggest that indirect reciprocity can foster large-scale cooperation and individuals use it to shift others' behavior from in-group to intergroup cooperation. [Extracted from the article]

Cross-societal differences in cooperation and trust among strangers in the provision of public goods may be key to understanding how societies are managing the COVID-19 pandemic. We report a survey conducted across 41 societies between March and May 2020 (N = 34,526), and test pre-registered hypotheses about how cross-societal differences in cooperation and trust relate to prosocial COVID-19 responses (e.g., social distancing), stringency of policies, and support for behavioral regulations (e.g., mandatory quarantine). We further tested whether cross-societal variation in institutions and ecologies theorized to impact cooperation were associated with prosocial COVID-19 responses, including institutional quality, religiosity, and historical prevalence of pathogens. We found substantial variation across societies in prosocial COVID-19 responses, stringency of policies, and support for behavioral regulations. However, we found no consistent evidence to support the idea that cross-societal variation in cooperation and trust among strangers is associated with these outcomes related to the COVID-19 pandemic. These results were replicated with another independent cross-cultural COVID-19 dataset (N = 112,136), and in both snowball and representative samples. We discuss implications of our results, including challenging the assumption that managing the COVID-19 pandemic across societies is best modeled as a public goods dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political ideology has been hypothesized to be associated with cooperation and national parochialism (i.e. greater cooperation with members of one's nation), with liberals thought to have more cooperation with strangers and less national parochialism, compared to conservatives. However, previous findings are limited to few--and predominantly western-nations. Here, we present a large-scale cross-societal experiment that can test hypotheses on the relation between political ideology, cooperation and national parochialism around the globe. To do so, we recruited 18 411 participants from 42 nations. Participants made decisions in a prisoner's dilemma game, and we manipulated the nationality of their interaction partner (national ingroup member, national outgroup member or unidentified stranger). We found that liberals, compared to conservatives, displayed slightly greater cooperation, trust in others and greater identification with the world as a whole. Conservatives, however, identified more strongly with their own nation and displayed slightly greater national parochialism in cooperation. Importantly, the association between political ideology and behaviour was significant in nations characterized by higher wealth, stronger rule of law and better government effectiveness.We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the association between political ideology and cooperation. This article is part of the theme issue 'The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding persistence and changes in prosociality across the life span is fundamental to inform theory and practice. As life expectancy increases and pressing societal challenges demand increasing generosity and cooperation among individuals, it is crucial to understand intergenerational interactions. We present the findings from a novel lab-in-the-field experiment (N = 359, 18-90 years) that examines generosity and cooperation between generations. Our methodological approach allows us to study the effect of age on prosocial behavior as a function of the age of an unknown partner. We ask participants to make several decisions, and to state their expectations for their partners' behavior, in a dictator game and a prisoner's dilemma game with real monetary outcomes. The dictator game serves as a measure of generosity, whereas the prisoner's dilemma serves as a measure of cooperation. We find that individuals used age as key information to condition behavior. Generosity was greater among older adults in response to young and older relative to middle-aged partners. Among younger adults, cooperation was greater in response to middle-aged and older partners relative to their own age cohort. All age groups expect less cooperation from young partners than from older and middle-aged partners. However, relative to young adults, older adults are more cooperative with young partners. Our study has crucial implications for the understanding of human generosity and cooperation across the life span. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reputation and punishment are two distinct mechanisms that facilitate cooperation among strangers. However, empirical research on their effectiveness is mainly limited to relatively small groups and does not address how they enhance cooperation in relatively larger groups. We address this gap in the literature by testing hypotheses from competing perspectives about the extent to which reputation-based partner choice and punishment enhance cooperation in both small and large groups. Prior work recognizes that an increase in group size is accompanied by a change in the incentive structure, which determines whether the temptation (extra benefit for each person from non-cooperation over cooperation, regardless of others' choices) or gain (extra benefit for each person from full cooperation over full non-cooperation) remains constant or varies with group size. Thus, we first test how group size affects cooperation when temptation or gain increases with group size (Study 1), and then move on to testing predictions on the effectiveness of reputation and punishment across different group sizes (Study 2). In Study 1 (N = 820), we randomly assigned participants to play an online one-shot public goods game in groups of 4, 20, or 40, while keeping the marginal group return or marginal per capita return fixed across groups, in which case the temptation or gain increased with group size. In Study 2 (N = 1,132), we further compared a public goods situation involving a punishment or reputation mechanism with an anonymous situation across group sizes, while the marginal group return was fixed across groups. Overall, we found that when temptation increased with group size, 20-person groups cooperated significantly less than 4-person groups in one-shot interactions, and that this effect was explained by lower expectation of others' cooperation, less perceived collective efficacy, and greater perceived conflict. However, 40-person and 4-person groups did not vary in one-shot cooperation. Importantly, reputation-based partner choice and punishment invariably promoted one-shot cooperation in groups of different sizes. These findings suggest no simple effect of group size on cooperation and underscore the utility of reputation and punishment in fostering cooperation (at least in one-shot interactions) regardless of the size of groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary psychologists have proposed two processes that could give rise to the pervasiveness of human cooperation observed among individuals who are not genetically related: reciprocity and conformity. We tested whether reciprocity outperformed conformity in promoting cooperation, especially when these psychological processes would promote a different cooperative or noncooperative response. To do so, across three studies, we observed participants’ cooperation with a partner after learning (a) that their partner had behaved cooperatively (or not) on several previous trials and (b) that their group members had behaved cooperatively (or not) on several previous trials with that same partner. Although we found that people both reciprocate and conform, reciprocity has a stronger influence on cooperation. Moreover, we found that conformity can be partly explained by a concern about one’s reputation—a finding that supports a reciprocity framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bounded generalized reciprocity (BGR) predicts that people cooperate to maintain a positive reputation with ingroup, but not outgroup, members—and this explains ingroup favoritism in cooperation. We propose that the benefits of maintaining a positive reputation are not limited by group boundaries and so people may cooperate to maintain a good reputation among outgroup members when they will meet and interact with members of that group again. According to this unbounded indirect reciprocity perspective, reputation can promote cooperation with both ingroup and outgroup members. Alternatively, social identity theory (SIT) favors social identity versus reputation as an explanation for cooperation among ingroup members. We test these hypotheses across five studies ( N s = 619, 607, 613, 360, and 615) that manipulate reputation, social identification, and partner's group membership in a cooperative decision making task. Across our studies, people were more cooperative with both ingroup and outgroup members when their reputation was at stake (Studies 1–5), and reputational concern mediated the effect of cues of gossip on cooperation in interactions with ingroup and outgroup members (Studies 1–4). Social identification did not affect cooperation with ingroup members. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the indirect benefits of cooperation that can transcend group boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Social dilemmas are situations in which following personal interest leads to collective disasters. Pollution, tropical deforestation, and the sustainable use of natural resources, can be characterized as examples of social dilemmas. In the negotiation literature, social dilemmas are known as tacit negotiations as individuals negotiate through moves rather than verbal communication. These negotiations are difficult to manage because of the absence of binding contracts and the interdependent nature of decisions of the parties involved. Therefore, it is important for participants to learn from activities addressing these issues. Although several negotiation exercises are available, it is difficult to find educational games or simulations specifically devised to allow several participants to face social dilemmas.Purpose. In this article, we present a negotiation game based on a well-known social dilemma, the Braess paradox. The Braess paradox has been observed in many real situations and is particularly suited to highlight the core concepts of social dilemmas.Approach. We will review the main negotiation activities focusing on the number ofparticipants they are implemented for. Then we will present an activity which allows to accommodate up to thirty participants and allows them to understand some interesting aspects of social dilemmas.Findings. Through the lessons gained by experiential learning, and the discussions emerging during debriefing, this activity may provide participants with a better understanding of urgent real problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the role of payoff information and conformity in improving network performance in a traffic dilemma known as the Braess paradox. Our goal is to understand when decisions are guided by selfish motivations or otherwise by social ones. For this purpose, we consider the manipulation of others' choice, public and private monitoring and information on distribution of choices. Data show that when social comparison was not salient, participants were more cooperative. By contrast, cooperativeness of others' choice made participants more competitive leading to traffic and collective performance decrease. The implications of these findings to the literature on social dilemmas are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]