Mistakes explain 'cooperative' behaviour

Mistakes explain 'cooperative' behaviour
In economic games people can choose to keep or pool their 'monetary units'

(麻豆淫院Org.com) -- How people behave in economic games, where they can choose to be selfish or cooperative, can be explained more easily by 'mistakes' than wanting others to succeed, Oxford researchers find.

The finding comes from four new experiments carried out by researchers from Oxford University, Edinburgh University, and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. A report of the research is published this week in PNAS.

In the four experiments 168 people played games in groups of four where they were able to choose how many of 40 monetary units they wished to contribute to a public project. Players were then rewarded according to the premium put on (contributing) as opposed to holding onto their 鈥榤oney鈥�.

鈥榃hat we found was that even as we increased the premium on cooperation, so that players made most money by contributing 100 per cent of their money, on average people contributed significantly less than 100 per cent,鈥� said Professor Stuart West of Oxford University鈥檚 Department of Zoology, one of the leaders of the study. 鈥業n fact even when full cooperation delivered the best financial returns between 66 and 94 per cent of people still saw fellow players as their competitors.鈥�

The research shows that mistakes or 鈥榠mperfect behaviour鈥� made by players in a game setting can lead to a systematic bias in how much or little they cooperate.

鈥極ur results suggest that players avoid both completely 鈥榮elfish鈥� and 鈥榝ully cooperative鈥� behaviour, even if one of these strategies delivers maximum benefit,鈥� said Professor West. 鈥楾his could derive from a psychology that avoids extreme behaviours, which could be very costly if they go wrong, or indicate that the sort of simple everyday rules of thumb we use to make these kind of 鈥榤isfire鈥� in an intense experimental setting.鈥�

The findings have important implications for evolutionary theory as they challenge the need for new evolutionary theories (such as 鈥榮trong reciprocity鈥�) to explain how such seemingly 鈥榓ltruistic鈥� behaviour could have evolved.

A report of the research, entitled 鈥楻esistance to extreme strategies, rather than prosocial preferences, can explain human cooperation in public goods games鈥�, is published in this week鈥檚 PNAS.

Provided by Oxford University

Citation: Mistakes explain 'cooperative' behaviour (2010, May 19) retrieved 28 June 2025 from /news/2010-05-cooperative-behaviour.html
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