Good standing and cooperation

Abstract

Indirect reciprocity is generally considered one of the leading mechanisms\ud to explain how cooperation may emerge by natural selection. The basic\ud intuition is that establishing a reputation of being a helpful individual increases the\ud probability of being in turn helped. Two models have been proposed to describe\ud how indirect reciprocity may work: the standing model (Sugden 1986/2004 in The\ud economics of rights, cooperation and welfare. Blackwell, Oxford.) and the imagescoring\ud model (Nowak and Sigmund 1998a in Nature 393:573–577, b in J Theoretical\ud Biol 194:561–574). Although there is evidence that the former model would\ud perform better under a wide set of circumstances, it is often maintained that it\ud requires individuals with an implausibly large capacity of processing recursive\ud information. In this paper, I argue that this is not actually the case. I further\ud emphasize that even if the hypothesis of indirect reciprocity is unable to give a fair\ud account of the ecological bases of cooperation, it has inspired a deal of research\ud precious to social sciences