Evolution of cooperative study

Abstract

Associate Professor Isamu Okada is based at the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Business Administration, Soka University in Japan, as well as a visiting professor of Department of Information Systems and Operations, Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria. Okada has dedicated his career to understanding more about the evolution of cooperation which is a strand of thought that falls under evolutionary biology. Academics around the world have long considered the issues relating to the evolution of cooperation. In these studies, cooperation is taken to mean providing benefits to others by paying some kind of cost, whether that be money, time, effort, etc. One of the most fascinating aspects of the theory is that rational thought holds a person has no incentive to cooperate. Indeed, despite decades of research and huge numbers of studies, a rational reason for cooperating has still not been cultivated properly. One of the mechanisms that lie behind cooperation are known as reciprocity and there are many different types. Three specific types have been studied in great detail; direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity and network reciprocity. Okada's team has conducted investigations that shine new light on indirect reciprocity which could open up new directions for the field of evolutionary biology.