A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation

Fehr, Ernst; Schmidt, Klaus M.

doi:10.1162/003355399556151

Cited by 8,733 publications

(2,707 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Our conclusions contradict a widely accepted paradigm in the field of human behaviour, that the results of public goods games reflect a uniquely human regard for the welfare of others [3,18,20]. We suggest that the acceptance of this human pro-sociality hypothesis was based on two things.…”

Section: (B) Learning In Public Goods Gamescontrasting

confidence: 90%

Payoff-based learning explains the decline in cooperation in public goods games

2015

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Economic games such as the public goods game are increasingly being used to measure social behaviours in humans and non-human primates. The results of such games have been used to argue that people are pro-social, and that humans are uniquely altruistic, willingly sacrificing their own welfare in order to benefit others. However, an alternative explanation for the empirical observations is that individuals are mistaken, but learn, during the game, how to improve their personal payoff. We test between these competing hypotheses, by comparing the explanatory power of different behavioural rules, in public goods games, where individuals are given different amounts of information. We find: (i) that individual behaviour is best explained by a learning rule that is trying to maximize personal income; (ii) that conditional cooperation disappears when the consequences of cooperation are made clearer; and (iii) that social preferences, if they exist, are more anti-social than pro-social.

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Section: (B) Learning In Public Goods Gamescontrasting

confidence: 90%

Payoff-based learning explains the decline in cooperation in public goods games

2015

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“…It is worth noting that connections between beliefs and behaviour can be formalized in our environment. In particular, when viewed through the lens of the Fehr-Schmidt [26] model of social preferences (see the electronic supplementary material), differences in expectations we elicit can well explain differences in frequencies of trust we observe. We also found the group formation process to influence reciprocity, though to a lesser extent than trust.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Cooperation during cultural group formation promotes trust towards members of out-groups

Pan

Houser

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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People often cooperate with members of their own group, and discriminate against members of other groups. Previous research establishes that cultural groups can form endogenously, and that these groups demonstrate ingroup favouritism. Given the presence of cultural groups, the previous literature argues that cultural evolution selects for groups that exhibit parochial altruism. The source of initial variation in these traits, however, remains uninformed. We show here that a group's economic production environment may substantially influence parochial tendencies, with groups formed around more cooperative production (CP) displaying less parochialism than groups formed around more independent production (IP) processes. Participants randomized into CP and IP production tasks formed cultural groups, and subsequently played hidden-action trust games with in-group and outgroup trustees. We found CP to be associated with significantly greater sharing and exchanging behaviours than IP. In trust games, significant parochial altruism (in-group favouritism combined with out-group discrimination) was displayed by members of IP groups. By contrast, members of CP groups did not engage in either in-group favouritism or out-group discrimination. Further, we found the absence of out-group discrimination in CP to persist even following 'betrayal'. Finally, belief data suggest that members of CP are not more intrinsically generous than IP members, but rather more likely to believe that out-group trustees will positively reciprocate. Our results have important implications for anyone interested in building cooperative teams, and shed new light on connections between culture and cooperation.

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“…However, humans frequently compare themselves to others, sometimes to their detriment, for instance incurring losses to make someone else suffer a greater loss in an ultimatum game. However, regard for others-either positively or negatively-would seem to be an important component of the types of cooperation, and competition, seen in human societies (Fehr & Schmidt 1999). The implication is thus that many features of cooperation, sense of fairness, morality and so forth that typify human social interactions have arisen no sooner than the last 6 million years of human evolution.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What's in it for me? Self-regard precludes altruism and spite in chimpanzees

et al. 2006

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Sensitivity to fairness may influence whether individuals choose to engage in acts that are mutually beneficial, selfish, altruistic, or spiteful. In a series of three experiments, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) could pull a rope to access out-of-reach food while concomitantly pulling another piece of food further away. In the first study, they could make a choice that solely benefited themselves (selfishness), or both themselves and another chimpanzee (mutualism). In the next two experiments, they could choose between providing food solely for another chimpanzee (altruism), or for neither while preventing the other chimpanzee from receiving a benefit (spite). The main result across all studies was that chimpanzees made their choices based solely on personal gain, with no regard for the outcomes of a conspecific. These results raise questions about the origins of human cooperative behaviour.

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A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation

Cited by 8,733 publications

References 21 publications

Payoff-based learning explains the decline in cooperation in public goods games

Payoff-based learning explains the decline in cooperation in public goods games

Cooperation during cultural group formation promotes trust towards members of out-groups

What's in it for me? Self-regard precludes altruism and spite in chimpanzees

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