Cooperation in small groups: the effect of group size

Nosenzo, Daniele; Quercia, Simone; Sefton, Martín

doi:10.1007/s10683-013-9382-8

Cited by 129 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Interestingly, this prediction is consistent with some models of the emergence of prosocial behavior, whereby cooperation (of which farming property rights are an example) is unlikely to emerge in large groups (35)(36)(37).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Transition to farming more likely for small, conservative groups with property rights, but increased productivity is not essential

Gallagher

Shennan

Thomas

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Theories for the origins of agriculture are still debated, with a range of different explanations offered. Computational models can be used to test these theories and explore new hypotheses; Bowles and Choi [Bowles S, Choi J-K (2013) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110(22): [8830][8831][8832][8833][8834][8835] have developed one such model. Their model shows the coevolution of farming and farming-friendly property rights, and by including climate variability, replicates the timings for the emergence of these events seen in the archaeological record. Because the processes modeled occurred a long time ago, it can be difficult to justify exact parameter values; hence, we propose a fitting to idealized outcomes (FIO) method to explore the model's parameter space in more detail. We have replicated the model of Bowles and Choi, and used the FIO method to identify complexities and interactions of the model previously unidentified. Our results indicate that the key parameters for the emergence of farming are group structuring, group size, conservatism, and farming-friendly property rights (lending further support to Bowles and Choi's original proposal). We also find that although advantageous, it is not essential that farming productivity be greater than foraging productivity for farming to emerge. In addition, we highlight how model behaviors can be missed when gauging parameter sensitivity via a fix-all-but-one variation approach.Neolithic revolution | simulation | agent-based modeling | fitting to idealized outcomes | property rights A fter around 190,000 y of anatomically modern humans living as hunter-gatherers, societies began to make a transition to agricultural subsistence systems. These transitions are thought to have occurred independently in several regions of the world between 11,500 and 3,500 y before present (yBP) (1), and farming has spread to most of the world from these centers. This transition had major impacts on human demography, evolution, diet, health, culture, technology, and social inequality (2-5). It is generally agreed that there are at least three separate regions around the world where agriculture originated independently: the Fertile Crescent, Mesoamerica, and China (1, 2, 5). There is also growing evidence for additional independent origins of domestication, which include the eastern United States, the Andes, the Central and South America tropics, New Guinea, West Africa, and southern and northern India (5).A range of different explanations for the development of agriculture have been proposed, including some based on affluence and social competition [e.g., via feasting (6)] and others based on stress [e.g., because of population pressure (7) or climate changes (8)]; some propose revolution (e.g., 9), and some suggest changes were made consciously (e.g., 10), whereas others argue changes were made unconsciously (e.g., 11) (1). Whereas the long-term advantages of farming are clear in that it is a strategy that has generally led to increased carrying capacities and greater reproductive successes when...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Transition to farming more likely for small, conservative groups with property rights, but increased productivity is not essential

Gallagher

Shennan

Thomas

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Our payoff function ensures that any given average contribution results in the same average profit for all group sizes. It is of course still possible that the change in the marginal per capita return introduces group size effects, as suggested in the literature for public goods games without punishment (Nosenzo, Quercia, & Sefton, 2015).…”

Section: The Gamementioning

confidence: 99%

Information-sensitive Leviathans

Nicklisch

Grechenig

Thöni

2016

Journal of Public Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract We study information conditions under which individuals are willing to delegate their sanctioning power to a central authority. We design a public goods game in which players can move between institutional environments, and we vary the observability of others' contributions. We find that the relative popularity of centralized sanctioning crucially depends on the interaction between the observability of the cooperation of others and the absence of punishment targeted at cooperative individuals. While central institutions do not outperform decentralized sanctions under perfect information, large parts of the population are attracted by central institutions that rarely punish cooperative individuals in environments with limited observability. Terms of use: Documents in

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“…The average rate of cooperation in PGG has been found to be responsive to changes in experimental parameters such as the group size, the marginal per capita return (MPCR), or the symmetry of payoffs (Isaac and Walker, 1988;Goeree et al, 2002;Nosenzo et al, 2015). We hypothesize on this basis that the choice of these parameters affects the degree of generalizability.…”

Section: Task Ii: the Laboratory Public Goods Gamementioning

confidence: 95%

What Do We Learn from Public Good Games About Voluntary Climate Action? Evidence from an Artefactual Field Experiment

et al. 2015

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractEvidence from public good game experiments holds the promise of instructive and costeffective insights to inform environmental policy-making, for example on climate change mitigation. To fulfill the promise, such evidence needs to demonstrate generalizability to the specific policy context. This paper examines whether and under which conditions such evidence generalizes to voluntary mitigation decisions. We observe each participant in two different decision tasks: a real giving task in which contributions are used to directly reduce CO2 emissions and a public good game. Through two treatment variations, we explore two potential shifters of generalizability in a within-subjects design: the structural resemblance of contribution incentives between the tasks and the role of the subject pool, students and non-students. Our findings suggest that cooperation in public good games is linked to voluntary mitigation behavior, albeit not in a uniform way. For a standard set of parameters, behavior in both tasks is uncorrelated. Greater structural resemblance of the public goods game leads to sizable correlations, especially for student subjects.

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Cooperation in small groups: the effect of group size

Cited by 129 publications

References 24 publications

Transition to farming more likely for small, conservative groups with property rights, but increased productivity is not essential

Transition to farming more likely for small, conservative groups with property rights, but increased productivity is not essential

Information-sensitive Leviathans

What Do We Learn from Public Good Games About Voluntary Climate Action? Evidence from an Artefactual Field Experiment

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