Many theories have attempted to address the question why people cooperate by examining the roles individuals play in groups, circumstances and even controlled or programmed experiments that test for responses to action or inaction within the group. What is clear even in my own experience is that it is important for cooperation to exist simply for mere survival. For example biological processes of different human body organs cooperate to ensure the whole body functions properly. However cooperation is also not just a biological or deterministic process alone but a rational one as well. Rational choice decisions on the part of individuals also clearly play a role in determining whether they cooperate or free ride. Cooperation is also about reciprocity which is derived form the notion of kindness and assumption that one good turn deserves another, which is also considered to be a driving force of cooperation. Interestingly some theories develop the process of cooperation further to include sub processes such as punishment and rewarding to ensure that positive cooperation is rewarded and free riders are penalised for their inaction. In this regard I look at game, rational choice and social behavioural theory to provide evidence to the claims I have made above.
Axelrod argues that people cooperate because of mutual benefits they derive from working together even as they pursue their own individual interests. Here he gives the example of senators working together to derive mutual benefit that will safeguard each senators interests resulting in a set of norms that govern cooperation in the senate. Game theory shows that mutual cooperation results in mutual benefits though if one pursues his self interests then the benefit is higher as shown by the prisoners dilemma where defectors derived the most points by defecting early which meant the other party got nothing. However if both parties cooperated they each got the same significant points deriving mutual benefit. If both parties did not cooperate and defected then they would each get the same penalty. This goes to show that people will cooperate as long as the mutual benefit is higher than the penalty of not cooperating and if they are sure that the other person would not defect. A good example given by Axelrod is the live and let live behaviour exhibited by the British and German soldiers in the trenches of the Second World War. These soldiers would attack each other when ordered to do so but desist from doing so when there were no orders. In this case soldiers from both sides would cooperate not to do each other harm unless ordered to do so. People also cooperate because of the possibility they will meet again. That is choices made today not only influence current outcomes but also future ones as well. The idea here is that people will cooperate in the present anticipating future cooperation, so if the parties recognize that they will need each other in the future they do what they can to cooperate. As shown by evolution biologist William Hamilton (Axelrod 1984 Chap 5) cooperation can occur without foresight because of the biological nature of organisms to survive by providing beneficial responses to others. This individual is likely to provide these set of genes to their offspring hence the cycle of cooperation continues biologically to the next generation.
Many studies show that reciprocity is a major motivational force with regards to cooperation of individuals. Reciprocity makes cooperation between peoples possible even if there are a large amount of people who don’t cooperate (defectors) and people who are new to the game and have not played before (newcomers). Fehr (1998) describes reciprocity as the behavioural predisposition to cooperate conditionally on others’ cooperation and to punish violations of cooperative norms even at a net cost to the punisher. This conditional cooperation is based on the degree of self interest of each party and whether each person is willing to contribute to the common good of the others at a cost to themselves. Fehr’s postulates that the presence of a punishment mechanism is also important in making people reciprocate because there is now a means to reward those who reciprocate and to punish those who are selfish. However what is also stressed in his “thesis” is that positive reciprocity would induce selfish people to cooperate with the objective of gaining some direct benefit from the cooperative people. Similarly the presence of negative reciprocity would also force the selfish people to be less opportunistic because of fear of getting punished by other selfish types. This is an interesting point because it also shows that selfish people also punish each other for increased opportunism. Fehr captures this in a series of game experiments where the games which are repeated without punishment lead to 53% of the participant’s free riding completely as compared to 80% of participants cooperating where the punishment is enforced by the reciprocators all the time. This was also shown by Axelrod in tit for tat experiments which showed that as long as people acted in the mutual interest of the other party then other party would respond in kind. Programs that constantly punish or enforce cooperation are not better tit for tat systems than those systems that reward cooperation and/or punish free riders. Therefore it is clear that while rewarding is an important force that ensures that people do cooperate, punishment is also important in ensuring that the free rider problem is solved. This ensures that cooperative members continue to cooperate in the group because they can see an effective system that rewards them and allows them to punish free riders.
A more rational approach is provided by Micheal Macy (1990) who reformulates Oliver Marwell’s theory of critical mass to show how cooperative responses are formulated by social responses and cues generated by the response of others. Here contributors often fall into a social trap created by the free rider problem while trying to address the issue of collective gain. This idea of critical mass is unique in the sense that it tries to address the issue of the cost of cooperation. Indeed there are occasions when individuals can make rational contributions to a group without diminishing the benefit to themselves, this would imply that the cost of contributing does not increase with increase in size of the benefiting group. However there are instances where it is necessary to have a balanced number of contributing members and free riders without diminishing the benefits to the proactive members and consequently turning them into free riders. Therefore it is necessary for there to be a critical mass of contributors who cooperate for the sake of the rest of the group who don’t. Rational choice theory observers that volunteers or contributors would have to observe the cost effectiveness of their actions so as to maximize the benefits of their contributions. According to Macy social learning theory provides a broader behavioural foundation for the theory of critical mass. The example he gives is that behaviour of actors in utilizing social norms that lead them to volunteer without purposefulness. Macy’s contribution here is that if a contributor is able to rationally decide that there is a critical mass of contributors that can sustain the overall group then that contributor will cooperate with others hence showing that people cooperate because they are rational and able to decide when it would be futile to do so.
In conclusion cooperation is sometimes a rational and adaptive process that depends on the nature of the group of participative individuals and how they relate to each other. Game theory experiments like tit for tat show that individuals adapt to positive previous treatment positively and negatively towards previous negative treatments. People can also cooperate without foresight which further enforces the point that cooperation can be a deterministic or adaptive process. We also see occasions where individuals may rationally decide to defect if they sense that the other party is about to do so. This shows that there is also choice available when it comes to people cooperating. This idea of rationality is also enforced by the fact that individuals cooperate because they anticipate they will need to cooperate with you again (foresightedness). This contrasts with the deterministic nature of cooperation vis a vis rational choice decisions which help a person determine which relationships are worth keeping. Another key concept in cooperation is the idea of reciprocity and how it plays a role in rewarding of contributors and punishment of selfish free riders. These theories are very useful in forming guidelines for governing group relationships and participation because it seeks to measure cost effectiveness of individual actions in a group and how best people can cooperate.
References:
Fehr, E. and Gintis, H. (2007). Human motivation and social cooperation: experimental and analytical foundations. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 43-64
Fehr, E. and Gachter, S. (1998). Reciprocity and economics: the economic implications of Homo Reciprocans. European Economic Review, 42, 845-859
Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. Penguin, London
Macy, M. (1990). Learning theory and logic of critical mass. American Sociological Review, 55(6), 809 826
