Cooperative Relationships

Abstract

Cooperative relationships arise from a history of mutually beneficial interactions between individuals, and they enable cooperation among a range of entities, including biological organisms, business firms, and nation‐states. As one of the simplest of emergent social forms, cooperative relationships can possess higher level properties (e.g., common expectations and rules of interaction, shared communication protocols) that are more than the sum of individual interactions. As such, cooperative relationships can become “things” in their own right, shaping how partners treat each other and how others treat partners within a relationship. Many open questions remain about how the emergent properties of cooperative relationships arise and how they foster future beneficial interactions while mitigating the risk of exploitation. Here, we frame these diverse findings and emerging questions in terms of the inputs and algorithms that partners use in forming models of each other and in guiding behaviors toward each other. We finish by outlining areas ripe for future exploration.

Fitness interdependence as indexed by shared fate: Factor structure and validity of a new measure.

“…Future research should help clarify the cognitive architecture underlying perceived interdependence. It may be that many diverse cues get integrated into an internal cognitive summary variable that includes cues like genetic relatedness (Burnstein et al, 1994; Curry et al, 2013; Hackman et al, 2015; Lieberman et al, 2007; Sznycer et al, 2016), risk pooling (Aktipis et al, 2011; Cashdan, 1985; Kaplan et al, 1985), reciprocation (Cosmides & Tooby, 2005; Delton et al, 2011; Hoffman et al, 1998), cooperative relationships (Hruschka, 2010; Hruschka & Silk, 2015), the existence of common friends or enemies (Pietraszewski, 2016; Shaw et al, 2017), worldview similarity (Curry & Dunbar, 2013; Pinsof & Haselton, 2016; Tooby & Cosmides, 1996), mutualism (Balliet et al, 2017; Charness & Rabin, 2002; Rusbult, 1983; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959), and shared group membership (Choi & Bowles, 2007). Alternatively, there may be several independent summary variables that influence behavior.…”