Cooperative Act Research Articles

SOME THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS PERTAINING TO THE CONTEXT OF TRUST

This conceptual paper focuses on trust and its context. Previous research indicates the importance of the specific‐situational nature of trust, which is affected by both interpersonal and organizational contextual factors. Hypotheses are formulated, and they revolve around trust and various interpersonal and organizational contextual variables. The interpersonal contextual factors included are the types of trustor‐trustee relationships, ethnicity of the trustors and trustees, perceived inequity, and the importance of a cooperative or noncooperative act to the receiving party. The organizational contextual factors included are politics, ownership structure, and organizational form. In addition to main effects, some of these variables may have interaction effects on trust. Also, the organizational contextual variables mediated by the interpersonal contextual variables may have indirect effects on trust.

“Does My Contribution Really Matter?”: Efficacy in Social Dilemmas

This chapter reviews a program of research which has examined some of the ways that feelings of inefficacy can affect cooperative choices in social dilemmas. Several ways in which self- and collective efficacy are determined, both validly and speciously, are identified. Few instances where established, cooperation-enhancing remedies are directly mediated by a sense of efficacy are documented, but it is demonstrated that a direct manipulation of perceived self-efficacy does have a strong, direct effect on willingness to cooperate. Moreover, it is illustrated in several studies that one can better understand why and when certain factors (e.g., group discussion; a shared group fate) affect cooperation by examining whether and how they are moderated by the efficacy of a cooperative act.

Communication, commitment, and cooperation in social dilemma.

Intragroup communication promotes cooperation in social dilemmas. Two explanations are plausible: discussion may (1) enhance feelings of group identity or (2) induce commitments to cooperate. Some remedies for social dilemmas (like group communication) may be subclassified as public welfare remedies (of which enhanced group identity is an example) vs cooperation-contingent remedies (of which commitment is an example). The efficacy of a cooperative act for enhancing the collective welfare should moderate remedies of the former but not the latter type. An experiment, using 441 female undergraduates, is reported in which group communication and the efficacy of cooperation were manipulated. As expected if communication induced commitments, but contrary to the group identity explanation, efficacy did not moderate the effect of group discussion. Other analyses provided more direct evidence that group members made and honored commitments to cooperate.

Toward a Formal Theory of Social Processes

A research program informed by Simmers geometric and Mead's processual frame of thought has isolated (1) the six elements of sociation that are established each time people produce a cooperative act, (2) the additional elements created when people construct episodes of interpersonal accounting and interpersonal negotiating, (3) some of the elements created when people put in place tyrannic, solidary, authority, and representative relationships, and (4) a few of the elements established when people become organizationally situated.

Some economists' perceptions of the economic impact of the U.S. national cooperative research act of 1984

Some economists' perceptions of the economic impact of the U.S. national cooperative research act of 1984

The Influence of a Minority within a Group

How does similarity in the views of most members in each of two groups modify the influence of the minority within each group? Similarity of the majority's view between groups (Similar/Dissimilar) and the Outcome of a prior intergroup cooperative act (Success/Failure) were varied. The results suggested the importance of a majority's readiness for acknowledgement of other views and the value of the assumption that the two groups were psychologically one group. A minority exerted less influence on a majority after a failure than after a success. Similarity was effective only in the Failure condition: A minority had the least influence in the Similar-Failure condition.

Evolution of social behavior by reciprocation

A general model is presented for the evolution of social behavior by reciprocation. The results of our model apply to social traits which are transmitted from one generation to the next by a process which guarantees that the frequency of the trait in one generation is directly related to its fitness in the preceding generation. The basic parameters of the model are α, the number of interactions per generation, and β, the number of these interactions which are with individuals who are perceived as strangers. It is shown that so long as α/β can be made large, social reciprocation may increase when arbitrarily rare even in the absence of population structure. This conclusion appears to be at odds with several recent investigations of Axelrod & Hamilton (1981) and Boorman & Levitt (1980). We use our model to reconcile these various approaches. By casting Axelrod & Hamilton's (1981) single-partner model in terms of the general parameters, α and β, we show that social reciprocation can increase when arbitrarily rare in a homogeneous population dominated by non-cooperators. Using a gene frequency approach, Boorman & Levitt (1973, 1980) demonstrated the existence of a selection threshold in frequency of the social trait, which must be surmounted for social reciprocation to increase. We show our analysis of reciprocation to be consistent with Boorman and Levitt's result, since for our general model the cost to the social individuals of learning the non-social's identity goes to zero as the ratio α/β gets large. We also use our general model to study two multi-partner models not considered elsewhere, which differ in regards to the memory capabilities assigned to the organism. Finally we use our model to compare directly the evolution of social behavior by reciprocation with the main alternate hypothesis, kin selection. We show that an act which accrues some cost − c to the fitness of the donor while benefiting a recipient by b , will increase in frequency so long as c / b < Φ (equation (30)), where Φ is defined as the “coefficient of reciprocation” or probability that a cooperative act is reciprocated. By comparing the coefficient of reciprocation with the coefficient of relatedness of kin selection, direct comparisons of the two hypotheses may be made.

Cooperation across the histocompatibility barrier: H2d T cells primed to antigen in an H-2d environment can cooperate with H-2k B cells.

H-2d spleen cells derived from either tetraparental or semiallogeneic radiation bone marrow chimeras can be primed to antigen within H-2d recipients to generate helper T cells capable of cooperating in a secondary response with equal efficiency with H-2d or H-2k B cells. Thus it would seem that the cooperative act between T and B cells does not require that the T cell interacts with its target B cells by either cell interaction genes or via an altered self mechanism involving both antigen and the target B-cell I-region products. This does not preclude a requirement for associative recognition or altered self in the interaction of helper T cells with accessory cells.

The carrier effect in the secondary response to hapten-protein conjugates. II. Cellular cooperation.

AbstractThe adoptive secondary response of mice to conjugates of NIP (4‐hydroxy‐5‐iodo‐3‐nitro‐phenacetyl‐) and DNP (2,4‐dinitrophenyl‐) is here used to elucidate the mechanism of cellular cooperation. The framework into which the experiments fit can be formulated as follows. Priming immunization raises a crop not only of specific antibody‐forming‐cell‐precursors (AFCP) but also of specific helper cells. Upon secondary stimulation the helper cells serve a role as handlers or concentrators of antigen, thus enabling AFCP which would otherwise be incapable of reacting to initiate antibody synthesis. In this act of cooperation both cells recognise antigen; in the system examined here the helpers recognise carrier determinants and the AFCP recognise either the hapten or other carrier determinants.The first aim of the experiments was to raise populations of helpers and AFCP of distinguishable specificity. Mice were primed with NIP‐Ovalbumin (OA) mixed with chicken γ‐globulin (CGG) and bovine serum albumin (BSA); in comparison with controls primed with unmixed NIP‐OA, their cells after transfer were relatively more sensitive to secondary stimulation with NIP‐CGG or NIP‐BSA and similar findings were obtained in cross‐checks of these carriers. For reasons which are not entirely clear, non‐transferred cells did not show the same effect. In further experiments cells primed with one conjugate (e. g. NIP‐OA) were mixed with cells primed with another protein (e. g. BSA), transferred and challenged with the hapten conjugated to the second protein (i. e. NIP‐BSA). In comparison with controls lacking the protein‐primed cells, the mixture regularly showed greater sensitivity to stimulation. NIP and DNP were tested in many of the possible combinations with BSA, OA and CGG with the same result. The mixture system was used in the further analysis.Tests with allotype‐marked protein‐primed cells showed that these cells did not participate in the production of the anti‐hapten antibody and could therefore properly be regarded as helpers. Tests of specificity showed that physical union of the hapten and carrier were required: cells primed with BSA, for example, would not help NIP‐OA‐primed cells to make a response to NIP‐HSA even when stimulated at the same time with BSA. Transfer of less than one‐tenth of the spleen gives a maximum helper effect, whereas AFCP activity continues to rise as larger numbers of cells are transferred. Helper cells are therefore normally present in excess.Helper activity is more resistant than AFCP activity to irradiation, drugs and semi‐allogeneic cell transfer across an H‐2 barrier. This suggests that helper cells play a relatively passive role in the immune response.Several observations indicate that helper cells are thymus‐derived mediators of cellular immunity. Passively transferred antibody did not substitute for helper cells. After immunization helper activity developed faster than AFCP activity. Spleen cells obtained from lethally‐irradiated, thymocyte‐repopulated, immunized donors provided help. Cells from the thymus‐derived fraction of thymus/marrow chimeras also appear to provide help.Thus, the hapten‐carrier cooperative response maps onto the well‐established synergy of thymus and marrow in the response to foreign erythrocytes.

Immunological paralysis induced by an idiotypic antigen.

A DIRECT association presumably exists between idiotypic specificity and the structure of the antibody site. The level of a particular idiotype should therefore vary in normal individuals and could reach relatively high levels after prolonged immunization with a homogeneous antigen. There must therefore be a mechanism which prevents autoimmunization by idiotypes. Two such mechanisms which have been suggested are (1) that an animal is tolerant of (paralysed by) its own idiotypic determinants1, and (2) that an antigen can only be an immunogen when it carries two widely separated determinants which enable it to participate by means of a carrier-effect mechanism2–4, in a cooperative act between two kinds of cell involved in the immune response5. Hypothesis (2) is contradicted by the results described in the previous article6, where the dinitrophenyl derivative of myeloma protein 5563 (DNP-5563) failed to elicit an immune response without previous or concomitant immunization against the DNP group, and also by the known capacity of multideterminant antigens such as mammalian γ-globulins to induce paralysis rather than immunity in adult animals.

The effects of different reinforcement contingencies in the development of social cooperation

In a series of five experiments, several reinforcement contingencies were evaluated as to their relative effectiveness in establishing and maintaining a behavioral pattern of social cooperation. Children, ranging from 5 to 10 years of age, were divided into six three-member groups. The data indicate that the highest group response rate is produced when positive reinforcement is provided to each of the group members, contingent upon the cooperative act, provided there is some form of individual feedback for appropriate individual responses. This particular reinforcement contingency, besides producing the highest group response rate, also resulted in the emergence of separate behavior patterns or roles for the members comprising each of the groups.

Effects of different reinforcement procedures in the establishment of a group response

Three reinforcement contingecies for the generation and maintenance of a complex cooperative act involving three-member groups have been evaluated experimentally. It was found that individual reinforcement is both necessary and sufficient for establishing such a response. Group reinforcement alone was not effective. The highest response rate, however, was produced by a combination of individual and group reinforcement.