Institutional adaptation in the evolution of the ‘co-operative principles’

Waring, Timothy M.; Lange, Taylor; Chakraborty, Sujan

doi:10.1007/s00191-021-00738-3

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Group level variation is a natural phenomenon in all social contexts, however, research suggests that human cultural (and organizational) evolution may be largely driven by the ability of groups to maintain effective patterns of group cooperation toward collective goals. [33,64] Thus, to the extent that the differences we observe in economic reciprocity are indicative of underlying patterns of cooperation, they may be consequential in the survival of these small clubs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Co-operatives are defined by their democratic decision-making, member ownership, reliance on cooperation and use of institutions to overcome conflicts of interest that may arise. [33] While formal co-operative grocery stores can rely on established rules to temper social dilemmas, food buying clubs often lack institutions initially, making reciprocity essential for early club success. [34] The core function of these clubs is to facilitate bulk food purchases, which present a collective action social dilemma when multiple people are required to purchase them.…”

Section: Food Clubsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observational evidence that economic reciprocity pervades self-organized food co-operatives

Lange¹,

Smolla²,

Waring³

2022

Preprint

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Evolutionary scientists argue that cooperation is central to human ecological success. Theoretical models, and behavioral experiments have found that human cooperation is conditional and context dependent, that individuals vary in their propensity to cooperate, and that cooperation can be stabilized by reciprocity within a group. However, outside of behavioral experiments, these findings have been difficult to validate with observations of cooperation in natural settings, especially in industrial societies, cash economies and structured organizational contexts. Here, we report in situ observations of behavioral cooperation and reciprocity from organizations embedded in a cash economy. We study small consumer food cooperatives or ‘food clubs’, in which members share bulk food purchases, and are considered to be heavily dependent on cooperation. We take advantage of a high-resolution purchasing dataset of all economic interactions for 1,528 individuals across 35 clubs, including 10,261 bulk purchases over a combined total of 107 years of club purchasing data. We develop a network method to detect economic reciprocity, categorize economic behavior as directly reciprocal, indirectly reciprocal, or non-reciprocal, and statistically classify individual behavioral types (reciprocator, helper, and beneficiary). Observed patterns of reciprocity confirm the central findings of theoretical and experimental studies. Reciprocity is highly abundant in most clubs, with direct reciprocity far more common (72%) than indirect reciprocity (11%). Reciprocators are the most common (69%) and the most stable behavioral type, but clubs vary significantly. Our results provide some of the first observational evidence of economic reciprocity and cooperation generally. They imply that cooperation may be a more important force in industrial societies, organizational contexts, and cash economies than currently understood. These results solidify the findings of the behavioral study of cooperation and open the door for greater study and application of cooperation in organizational management and economic policy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Food Clubsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observational evidence that economic reciprocity pervades self-organized food co-operatives

Lange¹,

Smolla²,

Waring³

2022

Preprint

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“…how strong is cultural group selection in humans? To date, empirical evidence for adaptive group-level cultural evolution has been largely driven by case studies [20,26,119], and few quantitative studies have been performed (see [47]). However, large temporal datasets are increasingly easy to construct for recent history, and approaches such as the SESHAT global history databank methodology [120] can be used for deep historical datasets, and archeological research could be employed to estimate evolution among human groupings and settlement types over large time periods of the past;…”

Section: Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions

Waring,

Wood,

Szathmáry

2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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We propose that the global environmental crises of the Anthropocene are the outcome of a ratcheting process in long-term human evolution which has favoured groups of increased size and greater environmental exploitation. To explore this hypothesis, we review the changes in the human ecological niche. Evidence indicates the growth of the human niche has been facilitated by group-level cultural traits for environmental control. Following this logic, sustaining the biosphere under intense human use will probably require global cultural traits, including legal and technical systems. We investigate the conditions for the evolution of global cultural traits. We estimate that our species does not exhibit adequate population structure to evolve these traits. Our analysis suggests that characteristic patterns of human group-level cultural evolution created the Anthropocene and will work against global collective solutions to the environmental challenges it poses. We illustrate the implications of this theory with alternative evolutionary paths for humanity. We conclude that our species must alter longstanding patterns of cultural evolution to avoid environmental disaster and escalating between-group competition. We propose an applied research and policy programme with the goal of avoiding these outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis’.

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“…Cultural adaptation can also spread beneficial institutions among groups. For example, a historical analysis shows that a set of organizational principles that emerged in England helped co-operative businesses to survive and spread between co-operatives worldwide [30]. Cultural adaptation is also important in domains such as language [31], technology [32], institutional change [33], health interventions [34], archaeology [35,36] and genetics [37].…”

Section: The Science Of Cultural Evolution Can Benefit Climate Adapta...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Operationalizing cultural adaptation to climate change: contemporary examples from United States agriculture

Waring,

Niles,

Kling

et al. 2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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It has been proposed that climate adaptation research can benefit from an evolutionary approach. But related empirical research is lacking. We advance the evolutionary study of climate adaptation with two case studies from contemporary United States agriculture. First, we define ‘cultural adaptation to climate change’ as a mechanistic process of population-level cultural change. We argue this definition enables rigorous comparisons, yields testable hypotheses from mathematical theory and distinguishes adaptive change, non-adaptive change and desirable policy outcomes. Next, we develop an operational approach to identify ‘cultural adaptation to climate change’ based on established empirical criteria. We apply this approach to data on crop choices and the use of cover crops between 2008 and 2021 from the United States. We find evidence that crop choices are adapting to local trends in two separate climate variables in some regions of the USA. But evidence suggests that cover cropping may be adapting more to the economic environment than climatic conditions. Further research is needed to characterize the process of cultural adaptation, particularly the routes and mechanisms of cultural transmission. Furthermore, climate adaptation policy could benefit from research on factors that differentiate regions exhibiting adaptive trends in crop choice from those that do not. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture’.

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Institutional adaptation in the evolution of the ‘co-operative principles’

Cited by 8 publications

References 58 publications

Observational evidence that economic reciprocity pervades self-organized food co-operatives

Observational evidence that economic reciprocity pervades self-organized food co-operatives

Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions

Operationalizing cultural adaptation to climate change: contemporary examples from United States agriculture

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