Large-scale Cooperation Research Articles

Partners or Strangers? Cooperation, Monetary Trade, and the Choice of Scale of Interaction

We show that monetary exchange facilitates the transition from small to large-scale economic interactions. In an experiment, subjects chose to play an “intertemporal cooperation game” either in partnerships or in groups of strangers where payoffs could be higher. Theoretically, a norm of mutual support is sufficient to maximize efficiency through large-scale cooperation. Empirically, absent a monetary system, participants were reluctant to interact on a large scale; and when they did, efficiency plummeted compared to partnerships because cooperation collapsed. This failure was reversed only when a stable monetary system endogenously emerged: the institution of money mitigated strategic uncertainty problems. (JEL C71, C73, E42)

Doubly effects of information sharing on interdependent network reciprocity

Understanding large-scale cooperation among unrelated individuals is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Since human cooperation evolves on social networks, the theoretical framework of multilayer networks is perfectly suited for studying this fascinating aspect of our biology. To that effect, we here study the cooperation in evolutionary games on interdependent networks, such that players in one network layer play the snowdrift game (SDG), and the prisoner’s dilemma game (PDG) in the other layer. Importantly, players are able to share information across two layers, which in turn affects their strategy choices. Monte Carlo simulations reveal that the transfer of information about the strategy of the corresponding player in the other network layer alone is enough to significantly promote the overall level of cooperation. However, while the cooperation is markedly enhanced in the layer where the PDG is played, the opposite is true, albeit to a lesser extent, for the layer where the SDG is played. The net increase in cooperation is thus due to a doubly effect of information sharing. We show further that the more complete the information transfer, the more the overall level of cooperation is promoted, and that this holds as long as the information channels between the player do not vary over time. We discuss potential implications of these findings for future human experiments concerning the cooperation on multilayer networks.

Competition Versus Cooperation: Implications for Music Teachers following Students Feedback from Participation in a Large-scale Cooperative Music Festival

Competition Versus Cooperation: Implications for Music Teachers following Students Feedback from Participation in a Large-scale Cooperative Music Festival

Evolutionary Origin of Politics and Political Evolution: Neuropolitics

The paper proposes that the evolutionary origin of politics is based on imaginary prosocial societies for large-scale cooperation at the beginning of civilization established by large-scale civilized social groups. According to Dunbar, the size of the human brain is adapted to the manageable group size of about 150 people (Dunbar’s Number). A manageable large-scale civilized social group much more than 150 people could not exist sustainably. To enhance group survival chance under such existential group-size pressure, large-scale civilized social groups invented politics for large-scale cooperation based on imaginary prosocial societies which founded prosocial religions of ancestor worship and high gods to enforce prosociality. (In modern times, imaginary prosocial societies founded secular nationalisms with elaborate rituals, monuments, and devotions to enforce prosociality.) This imaginary prosocial society became the foundation for a large-scale social group to establish a civilized social order for large-scale cooperation. Therefore, politics is defined as a civilized social order for large-group cooperation based on a shared imaginary prosocial society to enhance group survival chance under existential group-size pressure. Under politics with civilized social order, all types of large-scale cooperation became possible. In this paper, neuropolitics as the combination of neuroscience and political science is based on the political brain derived from the social brain through imagination and rationality. It explains the evolutionary origin of politics and the political evolution. The political imagination for imaginary prosocial society is derived from theory of mind that generates an imaginary prosocial society to have its own mind in its own imaginary world. The political rationality is derived from the rational brain that generates subjective rationality to defend a political view and objective rationality to create a new political view dialectically.

How costly punishment, diversity, and density of connectivity influence cooperation in a biological network

It has been an old unsolved puzzle to evolutionary theorists on which mechanisms would increase large-scale cooperation in human societies. Thus, how such mechanisms operate in a biological network is still not well understood. This study addresses these questions with empirical evidence from agent-based models designed to understand these network interactions. Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma games were designed to study how costly punishment, diversity, and density of connectivity interact to influence cooperation in a biological network. There were 1000 rounds in each game made up of 18 players engaged in pairwise relationship with their neighbors. This study shows three important interactions. (1) Introducing diversity to costly punishment favors both cooperation and defection, but not vice versa. Introducing costly punishment to diversity disfavors defection but favors cooperation. (2) Costly Punishment, alone, disfavors defection but decreases average payoff. Decreasing the density of connectivity, Dc, when there is no costly punishment applied, increases average payoff. (3) A synergy of diversity and decreasing density of connectivity favors cooperation in a biological network. Furthermore, this study also suggests a likelihood from empirical findings that spatial structures may not be favoring cooperation, as is the widely-accepted notion, but rather disfavoring defection in the global scale.

Order without Law: Reputation Promotes Cooperation in a Cryptomarket for Illegal Drugs

The emergence of large-scale cooperation in humans poses a major puzzle for the social and behavioural sciences. Reputation formation—individuals’ ability to share information about others’ deeds and misdeeds—has been found to promote cooperation. However, these findings are mostly based on small-scale laboratory and field experiments or on data gathered from online markets embedded in functioning legal systems. Using a unique data set of transactions in a cryptomarket for illegal drugs, we analyse the effect of buyers’ ratings of finished transactions on sellers’ business success. Cryptomarkets are online marketplaces in the so-called Dark Web, which can only be accessed by means of encryption software that conceals users’ identities and locations. The encryption technology makes it virtually impossible for law enforcement to intervene in these market exchanges. We find that sellers with a better rating history charge higher prices and sell their merchandise faster than sellers with no or a bad rating history. Our results demonstrate how reputation creates real incentives for cooperative behaviour at a large scale, in the absence of law enforcement and among anonymous actors with doubtful intentions. Our results thus challenge the institutional and social embeddedness of actors as necessary preconditions for the emergence of social order in markets.

Locally Orthogonal Training Design for Cloud-RANs Based on Graph Coloring

We consider training-based channel estimation for a cloud radio access network (CRAN), in which a large amount of remote radio heads (RRHs) and users are randomly scattered over the service area. In this model, assigning orthogonal training sequences to all users will incur a substantial overhead to the overall network, and is even impossible when the number of users is large. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce the notion of local orthogonality, under which the training sequence of a user is orthogonal to those of the other users in its neighborhood. We model the design of locally orthogonal training sequences as a graph coloring problem. Then, based on the theory of random geometric graph, we show that the minimum training length scales in the order of $\ln K$, where $K$ is the number of users covered by a CRAN. This indicates that the proposed training design yields a scalable solution to sustain the need of large-scale cooperation in CRANs. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme outperforms other reference schemes.

Bella Italia: Specialized Pediatric Surgical Care in Italy.

AbstractItalian pediatric surgery has a long history, rich in events, places, and personalities that make it unique. Our first pediatric surgical unit dates back to the first half of the 19th century and its number has grown exponentially during the following decades, with a maximum flowering in the years after the second world war.The rich history of pediatric surgery has not prevented it from facing important problems, such as the demographic crisis, underemployment of surgeons, and care of pediatric patients by adult specialists.The attempt to find solutions to these problems has led to a great deal of efforts not only by pediatric surgeons, but also by the Italian government and institutions, with the implementation of ministerial plans that favor the specificity and growth of our discipline through thematic and territorial networks, through more effective training and specialization plans, the cooperation between the Directors of Pediatric Surgical Units for a better coordination of care, the participation in European networks, such as the recently created ERNs (European Reference Networks).Many Italian pediatric surgeons are active in International Societies, as members or coordinators, in the design and management of multicenter studies and surveys and even in the creation of new international networks.The Italian response to the demand for specialization and centralization involves knowledge sharing, large-scale cooperation, transversal between specialists and vertical with governmental authorities for a better and more effective care of pediatric patients.

Cooperative Behavior Emerges among Drosophila Larvae

Spectacular examples of cooperative behavior emerge among a variety of animals and may serve critical roles in fitness [1, 2]. However, the rules governing such behavior have been difficult to elucidate [2]. Drosophila larvae are known to socially aggregate [3, 4] and use vision, mechanosensation, and gustation to recognize each other [5-8]. We describe here a model experimental system of cooperative behavior involving Drosophila larvae. While foraging in liquid food, larvae are observed to align themselves and coordinate their movements in order to drag a common air cavity and dig deeper. Large-scale cooperation is required to maintain contiguous air contact across the posterior breathing spiracles. On the basis of a directed genetic screen we find that vision plays a key role in cluster dynamics. Our experiments show that blind larvae form fewer clusters and dig less efficiently than wild-type and that socially isolated larvae behave as if they were blind. Furthermore, we observed that blind and socially isolated larvae do not integrate effectively into wild-type clusters. Behavioral data indicate that vision and social experience are required to coordinate precise movements between pairs of larvae, therefore increasing the degree of cooperativity within a cluster. Hence, we hypothesize that vision and social experience allow Drosophila larvae to assemble cooperative digging groups leading to more effective feeding and potential evasion of predators. Most importantly, these results indicate that control over membership of such a cooperative group can be regulated.

Perceived Shared Condemnation Intensifies Punitive Moral Emotions

Punishment facilitates large-scale cooperation among humans, but how punishers, who incur an extra cost of punishment, can successfully compete with non-punishers, who free-ride on the punisher’s policing, poses an evolutionary puzzle. One answer is by coordinating punishment to minimise its cost. Notice, however, that in order to effectively coordinate their punishment, potential punishers must know in advance whether others would also be willing to punish a particular norm violator. Such knowledge might hinder coordination by tempting potential punishers to free-ride on other punishers. Previous research suggests that moral emotions, such as moral outrage and moral disgust, serve as a commitment device and drive people to carry out the costly act of punishment. Accordingly, we tested whether the perception of socially shared condemnation (i.e., knowledge that others also condemn a particular violator) would amplify moral outrage and moral disgust, and diminish empathy for the violator. Study 1 (scenario-based study) revealed that perceived shared condemnation was correlated positively with moral outrage and moral disgust, and negatively with empathy. Study 2 experimentally demonstrated that information indicating that others also condemn a particular norm violation amplified moral outrage. Lastly, Study 3 (autobiographical recall study) confirmed the external validity of the finding.

A Stochastic Geometry Analysis of Large-Scale Cooperative Wireless Networks Powered by Energy Harvesting

Energy harvesting is an emerging technology for enabling green, sustainable, and autonomous wireless networks. In this paper, a large-scale wireless network with energy harvesting transmitters is considered, where a group of transmitters forms a cluster to cooperatively serve a desired receiver amid interference and noise. To characterize the link-level performance, closed-form expressions are derived for the transmission success probability at a receiver in terms of key parameters such as node densities, energy harvesting parameters, channel parameters, and cluster size, for a given cluster geometry. The analysis is further extended to characterize a network-level performance metric, capturing the tradeoff between link quality and the fraction of receivers served. Numerical simulations validate the accuracy of the analytical model. Several useful insights are provided. For example, while more cooperation helps improve the link-level performance, the network-level performance might degrade with the cluster size. Numerical results show that a small cluster size (typically 3 or smaller) optimizes the network-level performance. Furthermore, substantial performance can be extracted with a relatively small energy buffer. Moreover, the utility of having a large energy buffer increases with the energy harvesting rate as well as with the cluster size in sufficiently dense networks.

Social management in cooperatives: analyse of sustainability reports

This study aims to verify the social indicators reported by the Paraná agroindustry’s cooperatives, those that show their commitment to society. This is a qualitative, descriptive study. The content analysis technique was used through the software Atlas.ti and for data analysis, se used Multiple Correspondence Analysis. The results of this study demonstrate that small cooperatives tend to disclose low-level information on accountability indicators (product and society) and average level of dissemination of labor practices and human rights. Medium-sized cooperatives tend to disclose a low level of evidence of labor practices and decent work and human rights. Large-scale cooperatives disseminate high levels of human rights. The average and high disclosure of the other aspects are not related to the size. It is concluded that the indicators most reported by the cooperatives are: Training; employment; Local community; Decent work; Society; Employee health; Human rights; Labor practices; Salary; Employed workers’ ratio; Security. From the results of the content analysis, it can be inferred that Agribusiness cooperatives in general have practices of relationship with society, seeking continuous improvement for their associates and employees.

The Potential of International Cooperation in the Digitization of Chinese Ancient Books

AbstractThis paper probes the particularities of Chinese ancient books (the global dissemination, the complexity of versions, the embrittlement of the paper, and the special methods of binding) and the problems in the existing digitization projects (non-uniformity of retrieval languages and non-uniformity of description standards). The paper reveals the necessity for the digitization of Chinese ancient books and the importance of large-scale international cooperation. The authors finally make recommendations for database models and for the focus of international cooperation.

Rituals Move Us: How Ritualss Physical Style Impacts Group Functioning

Collective rituals are linked to large-scale group cooperation. An important element underlying ritual is the physical sequences involved and the strict adherence to certain patterned movements. Yet, little is known about how physical movement in ritual influences group-based outcomes, if at all. In three studies, we tested the prediction that the physical style of ritual – the elemental movements that comprise a ritual – serves a regulatory function by mobilizing shared motivational and emotional resources and, ultimately, facilitating effective group functioning. We found converging evidence to suggest that how a group moves (physically) during a ritual is closely linked to how they feel (emotionally; Study 1). We also found that the type of motivational context influences the style of ritual created, suggesting that a group’s ritual helps anticipate the emotive dynamics of a performance situation (Study 2). Finally, experimentally varying the physical features of a ritual in a competitive context was found to predict differences in group attitudes and performance behavior (Study 3). Taken together, our results provide support that not all rituals are the same. Physical movement in ritual can be thought of as a regulatory strategy for initiating shared motivational and emotional states required for effective group functioning.

High levels of rule-bending in a minimally religious and largely egalitarian forager population

ABSTRACTOur species’ biological success is unsurpassed – an achievement largely accredited to our remarkable capacity to cooperate. Large-scale cooperation, however, remains a puzzle. Recent work suggests that belief in the existence of omnipresent and omnipotent moralistic deities may have contributed to the emergence and maintenance of cooperation in large-scale societies. This study examines the relationship between religiosity and cooperation in the Hadza, one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer populations in the world. Hadza were surveyed about their religious beliefs and participated in two incentivized economic games, designed to measure rule-bending in favor of one’s campmates (game 1) and self (game 2) at the expense of Hadza living in other camps. Consistent with previous ethnographic descriptions, the Hadza engage in few religious practices and lack a strong belief in the existence of powerful and moralizing deities. The Hadza also show very high levels of rule-bending. There is, however, little evidence that belief in moralistic deities is associated with decreased rule-bending within the Hadza. Instead, the findings suggest that rule-bending for one’s campmates increases as the proportion of kin in one’s camp increases. Also, Hadza living in a geographic region close to markets and increased tourism exhibit greater rule-bending in favor of self compared to more isolated Hadza. The high levels of rule-bending and low levels of religiosity observed in the Hadza are discussed in light of the strong norms of sharing and egalitarianism that characterize their lives.

Think global, act local: Preserving the global commons.

Preserving global public goods, such as the planet’s ecosystem, depends on large-scale cooperation, which is difficult to achieve because the standard reciprocity mechanisms weaken in large groups. Here we demonstrate a method by which reciprocity can maintain cooperation in a large-scale public goods game (PGG). In a first experiment, participants in groups of on average 39 people play one round of a Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) with their two nearest neighbours on a cyclic network after each PGG round. We observe that people engage in “local-to-global” reciprocity, leveraging local interactions to enforce global cooperation: Participants reduce PD cooperation with neighbours who contribute little in the PGG. In response, low PGG contributors increase their contributions if both neighbours defect in the PD. In a control condition, participants do not know their neighbours’ PGG contribution and thus cannot link play in the PD to the PGG. In the control we observe a sharp decline of cooperation in the PGG, while in the treatment condition global cooperation is maintained. In a second experiment, we demonstrate the scalability of this effect: in a 1,000-person PGG, participants in the treatment condition successfully sustain public contributions. Our findings suggest that this simple “local-to-global” intervention facilitates large-scale cooperation.

The psychology of cooperation: Insights from chimpanzees and children.

Across all cultures, humans engage in cooperative activities that can be as simple as preparing a meal or sharing food with others and as complex as playing in an orchestra or donating to charity. Although intraspecific cooperation exists among many other animal species, only humans engage in such a wide array of cooperative interaction and participate in large-scale cooperation that extends beyond kin and even includes strangers.

Altruistic punishment does not increase with the severity of norm violations in the field.

The degree of human cooperation among strangers is a major evolutionary puzzle. A prominent explanation is that cooperation is maintained because many individuals have a predisposition to punish those violating group-beneficial norms. A critical condition for cooperation to evolve in evolutionary models is that punishment increases with the severity of the violation. Here we present evidence from a field experiment with real-life interactions that, unlike in lab experiments, altruistic punishment does not increase with the severity of the violation, regardless of whether it is direct (confronting a violator) or indirect (withholding help). We also document growing concerns for counter-punishment as the severity of the violation increases, indicating that the marginal cost of direct punishment increases with the severity of violations. The evidence suggests that altruistic punishment may not provide appropriate incentives to deter large violations. Our findings thus offer a rationale for the emergence of formal institutions for promoting large-scale cooperation among strangers.

Parsing the Behavioral and Brain Mechanisms of Third-Party Punishment.

The evolved capacity for third-party punishment is considered crucial to the emergence and maintenance of elaborate human social organization and is central to the modern provision of fairness and justice within society. Although it is well established that the mental state of the offender and the severity of the harm he caused are the two primary predictors of punishment decisions, the precise cognitive and brain mechanisms by which these distinct components are evaluated and integrated into a punishment decision are poorly understood. Using fMRI, here we implement a novel experimental design to functionally dissociate the mechanisms underlying evaluation, integration, and decision that were conflated in previous studies of third-party punishment. Behaviorally, the punishment decision is primarily defined by a superadditive interaction between harm and mental state, with subjects weighing the interaction factor more than the single factors of harm and mental state. On a neural level, evaluation of harms engaged brain areas associated with affective and somatosensory processing, whereas mental state evaluation primarily recruited circuitry involved in mentalization. Harm and mental state evaluations are integrated in medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate structures, with the amygdala acting as a pivotal hub of the interaction between harm and mental state. This integrated information is used by the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex at the time of the decision to assign an appropriate punishment through a distributed coding system. Together, these findings provide a blueprint of the brain mechanisms by which neutral third parties render punishment decisions. Punishment undergirds large-scale cooperation and helps dispense criminal justice. Yet it is currently unknown precisely how people assess the mental states of offenders, evaluate the harms they caused, and integrate those two components into a single punishment decision. Using a new design, we isolated these three processes, identifying the distinct brain systems and activities that enable each. Additional findings suggest that the amygdala plays a crucial role in mediating the interaction of mental state and harm information, whereas the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex plays a crucial, final-stage role, both in integrating mental state and harm information and in selecting a suitable punishment amount. These findings deepen our understanding of how punishment decisions are made, which may someday help to improve them.

Robustness of linkage strategy that leads to large-scale cooperation

One of the most well-known models to characterize cooperation among unrelated individuals is Social dilemma (SD). However there is no consensus about how to solve the SD by itself. Since SDs are often embedded in other social interactions, including indirect reciprocity games (IR), human can coordinate their behaviors across multiple games. Such coordination is called ‘linkage’. Recently linkage has been considered as a promising solution to resolve SDs, since excluding SD defectors (i.e. those who defected in SD) from indirectly reciprocal relationships functions as a costless sanction. A previous study performed mathematical modeling and revealed that a linkage strategy, which cooperates in SD and engages in the Standing strategy in IR based on the recipients' behaviors in both SD and IR, was an ESS against a non-linkage strategy which defects in SD and engages in the Standing strategy in IR based on recipients' behaviors only in IR (Panchanathan and Boyd, 2004). In order to investigate the robustness of the linkage strategy, we devised a non-linkage strategy, which cooperates in SD but does not link two games. First, we conducted a mathematical analysis and demonstrated that the linkage strategy was not an ESS against cooperating non-linkage strategy. Second, we conducted a series of agent-based computer simulations to examine how the strategies perform in situations in which various types of errors can occur. Our results showed that the linkage strategy was an ESS only when there are implementation errors in SD. However, the equilibrium of the linkage strategy was unstable when there are perception errors. Since we know that humans are not free from perception errors in their social life, future studies will need to show how perception errors can be overcome in order to provide support for the conclusion that linkage is a plausible solution to SDs.