Scarce and directly beneficial reputations support cooperation.
Journal
Scientific reports
ISSN: 2045-2322
Titre abrégé: Sci Rep
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101563288
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
13 07 2020
13 07 2020
Historique:
received:
16
03
2020
accepted:
18
06
2020
entrez:
15
7
2020
pubmed:
15
7
2020
medline:
15
7
2020
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
A human solution to the problem of cooperation is the maintenance of informal reputation hierarchies. Reputational information contributes to cooperation by providing guidelines about previous group-beneficial or free-rider behaviour in social dilemma interactions. How reputation information could be credible, however, remains a puzzle. We test two potential safeguards to ensure credibility: (i) reputation is a scarce resource and (ii) it is not earned for direct benefits. We test these solutions in a laboratory experiment in which participants played two-person Prisoner's Dilemma games without partner selection, could observe some other interactions, and could communicate reputational information about possible opponents to each other. Reputational information clearly influenced cooperation decisions. Although cooperation was not sustained at a high level in any of the conditions, the possibility of exchanging third-party information was able to temporarily increase the level of strategic cooperation when reputation was a scarce resource and reputational scores were directly translated into monetary benefits. We found that competition for monetary rewards or unrestricted non-monetary reputational rewards helped the reputation system to be informative. Finally, we found that high reputational scores are reinforced further as they are rewarded with positive messages, and positive gossip was leading to higher reputations.
Identifiants
pubmed: 32661258
doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-68123-x
pii: 10.1038/s41598-020-68123-x
pmc: PMC7359363
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
11486Subventions
Organisme : European Research Council
ID : 648693
Pays : International
Références
Olson, M. The Logic of Collective Action (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1965).
Hardin, G. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162, 1243–1248 (1968).
pubmed: 5699198
pmcid: 5699198
Axelrod, R. The Evolution of Cooperation (Basic Books, New York, 1984).
Luce, R. D. & Raiffa, H. Games and Decisions (Wiley, New York, 1957).
Nowak, M. A. Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science 314, 1560–1563 (2006).
pubmed: 17158317
pmcid: 3279745
Van Lange, P. A. M., Balliet, D., Parks, C. D. & van Vugt, M. Social Dilemmas: Understanding Human Cooperation (Oxford University Press, New York, 2014).
Nowak, M. A. & Sigmund, K. Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring. Nature 393, 573–577 (1998).
pubmed: 9634232
Nowak, M. A. & Sigmund, K. Evolution of indirect reciprocity. Nature 437, 1291–1298 (2005).
pubmed: 16251955
Righi, S. & Takács, K. Social closure and the evolution of cooperation via indirect reciprocity. Sci. Rep. 8, 1–9 (2018).
Wedekind, C. & Milinski, M. Cooperation through image scoring in humans. Science (New York, N.Y.) 288, 850–852 (2000).
Milinski, M., Semmann, D. & Krambeck, H. J. Reputation helps solve the ’tragedy of the commons’. Nature 415, 424–426 (2002).
pubmed: 11807552
Feinberg, M., Willer, R. & Schultz, M. Gossip and ostracism promote cooperation in groups. Psychol. Sci. 25, 656–664 (2014).
pubmed: 24463551
Everett, J. A. C., Faber, N. S. & Crockett, M. J. The influence of social preferences and reputational concerns on intergroup prosocial behaviour in gains and losses contexts. R. Soc. Open Sci. 2, 150546 (2015).
pubmed: 27019739
pmcid: 4807461
Ge, E., Chen, Y., Wu, J. & Mace, R. Large-scale cooperation driven by reputation, not fear of divine punishment. R. Soc. Open Sci. 6, 190991 (2019).
pubmed: 31598262
pmcid: 6731744
Semmann, D., Krambeck, H.-J. & Milinski, M. Reputation is valuable within and outside one’s own social group. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 57, 611–616 (2005).
Seinen, I. & Schram, A. Social status and group norms: indirect reciprocity in a repeated helping experiment. Eur. Econ. Rev. 50, 581–602 (2006).
Foster, E. K. Research on gossip: taxonomy, methods, and future directions. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 8, 78–99 (2004).
Ohtsuki, H. & Iwasa, Y. How should we define goodness?—reputation dynamics in indirect reciprocity. J. Theor. Biol. 231, 107–120 (2004).
pubmed: 15363933
Ohtsuki, H. & Iwasa, Y. The leading eight: social norms that can maintain cooperation by indirect reciprocity. J. Theor. Biol. 239, 435–444 (2006).
pubmed: 16174521
Ohtsuki, H. & Iwasa, Y. Global analyses of evolutionary dynamics and exhaustive search for social norms that maintain cooperation by reputation. J. Theor. Biol. 244, 518–531 (2007).
pubmed: 17030041
DePaulo, B. M., Kashy, D. A., Kirkendol, S. E., Wyer, M. M. & Epstein, J. A. Lying in everyday life. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 70, 979 (1996).
pubmed: 8656340
Kashy, D. A. & DePaulo, B. M. Who lies?. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 70, 1037 (1996).
pubmed: 8656334
Duffy, M. K., Ganster, D. C. & Pagon, M. Social undermining in the workplace. Acad. Manag. J. 45, 331–351 (2002).
Hess, N. H. & Hagen, E. H. Psychological adaptations for assessing gossip veracity. Hum. Nat. 17, 337–354 (2006).
pubmed: 26181477
Számadó, S., Szalai, F. & Scheuring, I. Deception undermines the stability of cooperation in games of indirect reciprocity. PLoS ONE 11, e0147623 (2016).
pubmed: 26824895
pmcid: 4732813
Shalvi, S. & De Dreu, C. K. Oxytocin promotes group-serving dishonesty. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 111, 5503–5507 (2014).
pubmed: 24706799
Levine, E. E. & Schweitzer, M. E. Prosocial lies: when deception breeds trust. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 126, 88–106 (2015).
Giardini, F. & Vilone, D. Evolution of gossip-based indirect reciprocity on a bipartite network. Sci. Rep. 6, 37931 (2016).
pubmed: 27885256
pmcid: 5122853
Fonseca, M. A. & Peters, K. Will any gossip do? Gossip does not need to be perfectly accurate to promote trust. Games Econ. Behav. 107, 253–281 (2018).
Fischbacher, U. & Follmi-Heusi, F. Lies in disguise—an experimental study on cheating. J. Eur. Econ. Assoc. 11, 525–547 (2013).
Abeler, J., Nosenzo, D. & Raymond, C. Preferences for truth-telling. Econometrica 87, 1115–1153 (2019).
Gintis, H. Strong reciprocity and human sociality. J. Theor. Biol. 206, 169–179 (2000).
pubmed: 10966755
Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. The evolution of strong reciprocity: cooperation in heterogeneous populations. Theor. Popul. Biol. 65, 17–28 (2004).
pubmed: 14642341
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. The nature of human altruism. Nature 425, 785–791 (2003).
pubmed: 14574401
Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature 415, 137–140 (2002).
pubmed: 11805825
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. Third-party punishment and social norms. Evol. Hum. Behav. 25, 63–87 (2004).
Feinberg, M., Wilier, R., Stellar, J. & Keltner, D. The virtues of gossip: reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 102, 1015 (2012).
pubmed: 22229458
Sommerfeld, R. D., Krambeck, H.-J., Semmann, D. & Milinski, M. Gossip as an alternative for direct observation in games of indirect reciprocity. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104, 17435–17440 (2007).
pubmed: 17947384
pmcid: 2077274
Sommerfeld, R. D., Krambeck, H.-J. & Milinski, M. Multiple gossip statements and their effect on reputation and trustworthiness. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 275, 2529–2536 (2008).
Fehr, D. & Sutter, M. Gossip and the efficiency of interactions. Games Econ. Behav. 113, 448–460 (2019).
Feinberg, M. Exploring the Virtues of Gossip: The Prosocial Motivations and Functions of Reputational Information Sharing. Ph.D. thesis, UC Berkeley (2012).
Willer, R. Groups reward individual sacrifice: the status solution to the collective action problem. Am. Sociol. Rev. 74, 23–43 (2009).
Raihani, N. J. & Bshary, R. The reputation of punishers. Trends Ecol. Evol. 30, 98–103 (2015).
pubmed: 25577128
Kandori, M. Social norms and community enforcement. Rev. Econ. Stud. 59, 63–80 (1992).
Sugden, R. et al. The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare (Springer, Berlin, 2004).
Ohtsuki, H., Iwasa, Y. & Nowak, M. A. Indirect reciprocity provides only a narrow margin of efficiency for costly punishment. Nature 457, 79–82 (2009).
pubmed: 19122640
pmcid: 2614697
Ohtsuki, H., Iwasa, Y. & Nowak, M. A. Reputation effects in public and private interactions. PLoS Comput. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004527 (2015).
doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004527
pubmed: 26606239
pmcid: 4659694
Roberts, G. Competitive altruism: from reciprocity to the handicap principle. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B Biol. Sci. 265, 427–431 (1998).
Barclay, P. Trustworthiness and competitive altruism can also solve the “tragedy of the commons”. Evol. Hum. Behav. 25, 209–220 (2004).
Barclay, P. & Willer, R. Partner choice creates competitive altruism in humans. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 274, 749–753 (2007).
Barclay, P. Strategies for cooperation in biological markets, especially for humans. Evol. Hum. Behav. 34, 164–175 (2013).
Henrich, J., Chudek, M. & Boyd, R. The Big Man Mechanism: how prestige fosters cooperation and creates prosocial leaders. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 370, 20150013 (2015).
Macfarlan, S. J., Quinlan, R. & Remiker, M. Cooperative behaviour and prosocial reputation dynamics in a Dominican village. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 280, 20130557 (2013).
Macfarlan, S. J. & Lyle, H. F. Multiple reputation domains and cooperative behaviour in two Latin American communities. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 370, 20150009 (2015).
Paine, R. What is gossip about? An alternative hypothesis. Man 2, 278–285 (1967).
Barkow, J. H. Beneath new culture is old psychology: gossip and social stratification. In The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, 627–637 (Oxford University Press, New York, 1992).
Buss, D. M. & Dedden, L. A. Derogation of competitors. J. Soc. Pers. Relatsh. 7, 395–422 (1990).
McAndrew, F. T. The, “sword of a woman”: gossip and female aggression. Aggress. Violent Behav. 19, 196–199 (2014).
Milinski, M., Semmann, D. & Krambeck, H. J. Donors to charity gain in both indirect reciprocity and political reputation. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 269, 881–883 (2002).
Lyle, H. F. & Smith, E. A. The reputational and social network benefits of prosociality in an Andean community. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111, 4820–4825 (2014).
pubmed: 24639494
pmcid: 3977260
Bird, R. B. & Power, E. A. Prosocial signaling and cooperation among Martu hunters. Evol. Hum. Behav. 36, 389–397 (2015).
Rapoport, A. & Chammah, A. M. Prisoner’s Dilemma; A Study in Conflict and Cooperation (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1965).
Frey, B. S. & Jegen, R. Motivation crowding theory. J. Econ. Surv. 15, 589–611 (2001).
Bowles, S. Policies designed for self-interested citizens may undermine “the moral sentiments”: evidence from economic experiments. Science (New York, N.Y.) 320, 1605–1609 (2008).
Bravo, G., Squazzoni, F. & Takács, K. Intermediaries in trust: indirect reciprocity, incentives, and norms. J. Appl. Math. 2015, 1–12 (2015).
Yoeli, E., Hoffman, M., Rand, D. G. & Nowak, M. A. Powering up with indirect reciprocity in a large-scale field experiment. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 110, 10424–10429 (2013).
pubmed: 23754399
Bowles, S. & Polania-Reyes, S. Economic incentives and social preferences: substitutes or complements?. J. Econ. Lit. 50, 368–425 (2012).
Bénabou, R. & Tirole, J. Incentives and prosocial behavior. Am. Econ. Rev. 96, 1652–1678 (2006).
Deci, E. L., Koestner, R. & Ryan, R. M. A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychol. Bull. 125, 627–668 (1999) (discussion 692–700).
pubmed: 10589297
Mulder, L. B., van Dijk, E., De Cremer, D. & Wilke, H. A. M. Undermining trust and cooperation: the paradox of sanctioning systems in social dilemmas. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 42, 147–162 (2006).
Ariely, D., Bracha, A. & Meier, S. Doing good or doing well? Image motivation and monetary incentives in behaving prosocially. Am. Econ. Rev. 99, 544–555 (2009).
Johnsen, A. A. & Kvaløy, O. Does strategic kindness crowd out prosocial behavior?. J. Econ. Behav. Organ. 132, 1–11 (2016).
Gneezy, U., Meier, S. & Rey-Biel, P. When and why incentives (don’t) work to modify behavior. J. Econ. Perspect. 25, 191–210 (2011).
Smith, E. A. & Bird, R. L. B. Turtle hunting and tombstone opening: public generosity as costly signaling. Evol. Hum. Behav. 21, 245–261 (2000).
pubmed: 10899477
Bird, R. B., Ready, E. & Power, E. A. The social significance of subtle signals. Nat. Hum. Behav. 2, 452–457 (2018).
Fischbacher, U., Gächter, S. & Fehr, E. Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment. Econ. Lett. 71, 397–404 (2001).
Rand, D. G. & Nowak, M. A. Human cooperation. Trends Cogn. Sci. 17, 413–425 (2013).
pubmed: 23856025
Sylwester, K. & Roberts, G. Reputation-based partner choice is an effective alternative to indirect reciprocity in solving social dilemmas. Evol. Hum. Behav. 34, 201–206 (2013).
Herrmann, E., Engelmann, J. M. & Tomasello, M. Children engage in competitive altruism. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 179, 176–189 (2019).
pubmed: 30537568
Feinberg, M., Cheng, J. T. & Willer, R. Gossip as an effective and low-cost form of punishment. Behav. Brain Sci. 35, 25 (2012).
pubmed: 22289314
Fischbacher, U. z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments. Exp. Econ. 10, 171–178 (2007).