A thought experiment: Imagine that we had not evolved to be a prosocial animal; a family creature, perhaps, but with no wish for further positive social exchange. Where, then, might the human species be today? Surely we could not have accumulated an understanding of the physical and natural world as we have over the last 10,000 years, bringing such benefits for human welfare?
We owe this progress not only to our superior intelligence, unstoppable curiosity and the accrual of knowledge across generations, but to the fact that, within each generation, and at many scales, we enthusiastically cooperate by sharing with others our physical power, resources, skills, knowledge, experience, social support and social influence. As a result, we benefit from the greater sum of similar forces, and by combining complementary aptitudes and assets.
The origins of cooperation
This prosocial stance started modestly in the hunting and gathering of our pre-historical ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago, at its core a concern for the welfare of others, originally it seems – addressing the evolutionary question – because the individual’s own welfare began to be so bound up with that of others: we became highly interdependent. Sympathetic human qualities to support cooperation followed: reciprocity, altruism, trust, guilt and forgiveness.
The dilemma of cooperation
So, if cooperation brings such benefits, why is it not more widespread and why does it sometimes fail? Because, simply, it is often more profitable, at least in the short term, to exploit the fruits of cooperation created by others, the clash of these conflicting inclinations characterising the ‘social dilemma’ at the heart of much social policy.
As an example of this dilemma, consider the individual who dumps their waste on someone else’s land, or the nation whose pollution causes damage beyond its borders. In both cases, the polluter gains an immediate benefit although the single polluting act may cause little harm. And although dumping is beneficial for the polluter whatever others do, so that all parties are tempted to pollute, they would all have been better off if they had cooperated and shown restraint.
Consequently, the challenge for cooperation is, first, to see every individual’s actions in a social context in which others have a stake; and second, to have either concern for the welfare of others, or the insight to appreciate that cooperation benefits everyone in the long-term … or a bit of both. If these conditions are met, then all can flourish. Without the second condition, however, there is a temptation to free-ride, and the common good will not be best served.
Motives for cooperation
So much for the general logic of cooperation. Empirically, we now have evidence of many factors that encourage cooperative behaviour, variables that reflect a small number of motives, primarily a sense of fairness and a concern for one’s reputation.
The sense of fairness explains why cooperation is conditional, being more likely when others are believed to be cooperating too. For example, in a study of 40,000 Minnesota citizens, tax compliance was measured after citizens had received one of two letters from the tax office. Half were told truthfully that people rarely cheat on their taxes, the other half that ‘when taxpayers do not pay what they owe, the entire community suffers’. Subsequent compliance was significantly greater in the former group, suggesting that honesty in others enhances cooperation more than being told that if you pay your tax it will help the community. Other real-world experiments find that people are more helpful when others take more care of public spaces.
Cooperation and social policy
Given the social dilemma that bedevils the ambition for a fully cooperative society, we must continually seek ways to maintain cooperation where it exists and initiate it where it does not. Social policy is crucial to this endeavour and I have recently guest edited an issue of Global Discourse in which behavioural scientists and social policy practitioners cowrote articles considering how the science of cooperation can best be applied to a variety of societal issues: climate change negotiation and disability welfare payments (in Part 1); sustainable travel, vaccine and organ donation take-up, refugee assistance and encouraging cooperation in the young (in Part 2). Commentaries, with responses, accompany the target articles. An introduction to one of these articles shows how behavioural science can be brought to bear on an important societal problem in a practical way.
Faiza El-Higzi, from the University of Queensland, who has directed a centre for refugee assistance in Brisbane, collaborated with Cristina Moya, an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis, to write on the challenge of refugee assistance. Focusing on community-level cooperation, in the case of a successful grassroots effort to help a family of asylum seekers in Australia, they review the evolutionary social science literature on cooperation, suggesting how collective action in support of refugees can be promoted. They describe two goals in this endeavour. Norm change means convincing the community of the belief that supporting refugees is a public good, which can be difficult, particularly when cooperation favours ‘in-group’ over ‘out-group’ members. Strengthening altruistic action is a more tractable goal.
El-Higzi and Moya stress the prerequisites for successful refugee assistance: a pre-existing core group of organisers with an infrastructure of support, and a network of varied skills and resources. Norms are important and success relies on prosocial action being valued by the community, so that reputational rewards accrue to those participating in collective action.
The gradual accrual of this kind of psychological and pragmatic understanding is crucial when action is required in the public domain, and this article illustrates the fruits of close collaboration – dare I say cooperation – between behavioural researchers and those directly concerned with social problems on the ground.
John Lazarus is a behavioural scientist at Newcastle University.
The special Issues of Global Discourse on Cooperation and Social Policy: Integrating Evidence into Practice are guest edited by John Lazarus and available on Bristol University Press Digital: Part 1 and Part 2.
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