Promoting cooperation in the field

Kraft‐Todd, Gordon; Yoeli, Erez; Bhanot, Syon; Rand, David G.

doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.02.006

Cited by 159 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…More generally, it is important for future work to explore the generalizability of our results using more real-world measures, such as natural experiments (exploiting variation in institutional quality across locations) or actual field experiments involving randomization (e.g. Kraft-Todd et al, 2015). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For decades, researchers across the social and natural sciences have investigated what makes individuals choose to engage in cooperation despite the personal costs involved (Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981; Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; R. Campbell & Sowden, 1985; Chakroff & Young, 2014; Chudek & Henrich, 2011; Cushman & Macindoe, 2009; Galinsky & Schweitzer, 2015; Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007; Kiyonari, Tanida, & Yamagishi, 2000; Kraft-Todd, Yoeli, Bhanot, & Rand, 2015; Paluck, Shepherd, & Aronow, 2016; Raihani, Thornton, & Bshary, 2012; Rand & Nowak, 2013; Tooby & Cosmides, 1990; Van Lange, De Bruin, Otten, & Joireman, 1997). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From good institutions to generous citizens: Top-down incentives to cooperate promote subsequent prosociality but not norm enforcement

2017

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What makes people willing to pay costs to help others, and to punish others’ selfishness? Why does the extent of such behaviors vary markedly across cultures? To shed light on these questions, we explore the role of formal institutions in shaping individuals’ prosociality and punishment. In Study 1 (N=707), American participants who reported living under higher quality cooperation-enforcing institutions (police and courts) gave significantly more in a Dictator Game (DG), but did not punish significantly more in a Third-Party Punishment Game (TPPG). In Study 1R (N=1,705), we replicated the positive relationship between reported institutional quality and DG giving observed in Study 1. In Study 2 (N=516), we experimentally manipulated institutional quality in a repeated Public Goods Game with a centralized punishment institution. Consistent with the correlational results of Study 1 and 1R, we found that centralized punishment led to significantly more prosociality in a subsequent DG compared to a no-punishment control, but had no significant direct effect on subsequent TPPG punishment (only an indirect effect via increased DG giving). Thus we present convergent evidence that the quality of institutions one is exposed to “spills over” to subsequent prosociality but not punishment. These findings support a theory of social heuristics, suggest boundary conditions on spillover effects of cooperation, and demonstrate the power of effective institutions for instilling habits of virtue and creating cultures of cooperation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From good institutions to generous citizens: Top-down incentives to cooperate promote subsequent prosociality but not norm enforcement

2017

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“…Thus, reciprocal altruism can explain kindness in the form of sympathy (for those in need), trust (initiating cooperation), returning favours, gratitude (for favours yet to be returned), forgiveness and friendship. Reciprocal altruism predicts that these tendencies will most likely be elicited in repeated interactions where individuals expect to meet again, where one's cooperative (or uncooperative) behaviour can be observed by others, and towards others who have helped them in the past, or will be able to help them in the future (Kraft-Todd, Yoeli, Bhanot, & Rand, 2015). This can includes kindness to strangers: a kind act may be a way of making a new friend; after all, 'a stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet' (Delton, Krasnow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 2011;Krasnow, Delton, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2013).…”

Section: Mutualism: People Will Be Kind To Members Of Their Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Happy to Help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor

Curry¹,

Rowland²,

Lissa³

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Do acts of kindness improve the well-being of the actor? Recent advances in the behavioural sciences have provided a number of explanations of human social, cooperative and altruistic behaviour. These theories predict that people will be 'happy to help' family, friends, community members, spouses, and even strangers under some conditions. Here we conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the experimental evidence that kindness interventions (for example, performing 'random acts of kindness') boost subjective well-being. Our initial search of the literature identified 489 articles; of which 24 (27 studies) met the inclusion criteria (total N = 4045). These 27 studies, some of which included multiple control conditions and dependent measures, yielded 52 effect sizes. Multi-level modeling revealed that the overall effect of kindness on the well-being of the actor is small-tomedium (δ = 0.28). The effect was not moderated by sex, age, type of participant, intervention, control condition or outcome measure. There was no indication of publication bias. We discuss the limitations of the current literature, and recommend that future research test more specific theories of kindness: taking kindness-specific individual differences into account; distinguishing between the effects of kindness to specific categories of people; and considering a wider range of proximal and distal outcomes. Such research will advance our understanding of the causes and consequences of kindness, and help practitioners to maximise the effectiveness of kindness interventions to improve well-being.

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“…Future studies should explore the evolutionary dynamics among heterogeneous states, as well as asking what happens when the state update rate is itself allowed to evolve, rather than being exogenously fixed as it is in our model. It will also be illuminating to explore the interaction between the institutional incentives wielded by States in our model and Citizen behavior in contexts that are beyond the reach of the State's punishment (e.g., [43]), as well as the State's use of monetary versus social sanctions [44].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Should Law Keep Pace with Society? Relative Update Rates Determine the Co-Evolution of Institutional Punishment and Citizen Contributions to Public Goods

Roithmayr

Isakov

Rand

2015

Games

Self Cite

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Until recently, theorists considering the evolution of human cooperation have paid little attention to institutional punishment, a defining feature of large-scale human societies. Compared to individually-administered punishment, institutional punishment offers a unique potential advantage: the ability to control how quickly legal rules of punishment evolve relative to social behavior that legal punishment regulates. However, at what rate should legal rules evolve relative to society to maximize compliance? We investigate this question by modeling the co-evolution of law and cooperation in a public goods game with centralized punishment. We vary the rate at which States update their legal punishment strategy relative to Citizens' updating of their contribution strategy and observe the effect on Citizen cooperation. We find that when States have unlimited resources, slower State updating lead to more Citizen cooperation: by updating more slowly, States force Citizens to adapt to the legal punishment rules. When States depend on Citizens to finance their punishment activities, however, we find evidence of a 'Goldilocks' effect: optimal compliance is achieved when legal rules evolve at a critical evolutionary rate that is slow enough to force Games 2015, 6 125 citizens to adapt, but fast enough to enable states to quickly respond to outbreaks of citizen lawlessness.

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Promoting cooperation in the field

Cited by 159 publications

References 50 publications

From good institutions to generous citizens: Top-down incentives to cooperate promote subsequent prosociality but not norm enforcement

From good institutions to generous citizens: Top-down incentives to cooperate promote subsequent prosociality but not norm enforcement

Happy to Help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor

Should Law Keep Pace with Society? Relative Update Rates Determine the Co-Evolution of Institutional Punishment and Citizen Contributions to Public Goods

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