How Cooperation Is Maintained in Human Societies: Punishment, Study Suggests

[The Straight Story]

How Cooperation Is Maintained in Human Societies: Punishment, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (May 3, 2010) — Humans are incredibly cooperative, but why do people cooperate and how is cooperation maintained? A new research study by UCLA anthropology professor Robert Boyd and his colleagues from the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico suggests cooperation in large groups is maintained by punishment.

The finding challenges previous cooperation/punishment models that argue punishment is uncoordinated and unconditional.

Boyd and his team report their research in the April 30 issue of the journal Science. The research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Santa Fe Institute's Behavioral Sciences Program, the European Science Foundation and the University of Siena.

To understand the study, let's start with a small group of friends. In small groups, individuals often have personal connections with other group members and cooperation typically is maintained by a "you help me, I'll help you" reciprocity system. Group members cooperate because they do not want to hurt their friends by not participating in group efforts, and also because they may want help in the future.

But in a larger group, like a tribe, those mechanisms for maintaining cooperation are lost. All group members experience the benefits of the large group, even those members who stop cooperating and become "free-riders." Free-riders are people who benefit from the group in food sharing and protection from enemies, for example, without contributing to food collection or war. In these cases, the personal connection to the group's members is often gone.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100501013529.htm

[handmade34]

1. curious articles on same site

"Carrots Are Better Than Sticks For Building Human Cooperation, Study Finds"

"Winners Do Not Punish: Punishment Does Not Earn Rewards Or Cooperation, Study Finds"

"Evolution of Fairness and Punishment"
"Researchers have long been puzzled by large societies in which strangers routinely engage in voluntary acts of kindness, respect and mutual benefit even though there is often an individual cost involved.
...suggests that the cooperative nature of each society is at least partly dependent upon historical forces -- such as religious beliefs and the growth of market transactions...The study also found the extent to which a society uses punishment to enforce norms increases and decreases with the number of people in the society."