Cooperation Science Toolkit

August 22, 2018 Overview This toolkit presents the highlights of the science of cooperation most useful for (a) enhancing sustainability research, and (b) nurturing cooperation in human groups as part of sustainability solutions. Contents

1. Cooperation Science Overview 2. Cooperation for Sustainability Research 3. Applied Cooperation Science 4. Resource List

Cooperation Science Overview Defining Cooperation

Defining Cooperation

• Behavior that benefits others, often at a personal cost o Prosociality > Coordination > Cooperation > Altruism

• Cooperation may occur at any social scale o individual behavior (e.g. energy conservation = awkward for individuals) o group behavior (e.g. carbon tax = political costs for politicians, tax payers)

Cooperation solves social dilemmas

• Social dilemmas are situations in which the best outcome for individuals is not the best outcome for the group

o Social dilemmas can be resolved through cooperation o Social dilemmas perpetually promote free-riders. o Example: Prisoner’s Dilemma

• NOTE: Cooperation is not needed if there is no social dilemma Cooperation is ephemeral

• Because cooperation is costly for individuals, it is often ephemeral • Free-riding is always cheaper! • Cooperation is a puzzle: Evolutionary biologists and economists have hunted for ways to

“stabilize cooperation” for decades (PD in 1950s, wargames) (Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981; Nowak, 2006)

o Example: Cancer is a breakdown of cellular cooperation (Johnson, 2017) o Example: US congressional decorum, norms, procedure (1950-2018)

Cooperation can determine outcomes • Teams who cooperate beat teams who don’t. (every team sport, ever) • Humans cooperative talents allows us to colonize Earth (Henrich, 2015; Wilson, 2013) • Cooperation dynamics can determine social-ecological status

o Examples: see case studies below

How Cooperation Grows

Cooperation can be cultivated

• Cooperation grows… o In general: When those who give also receive. o In these domains (for all species)

§ Among kin • Stronger with higher relatedness (social insects)

§ Amongst reciprocators • Stronger with repeat interactions, partner choice

§ Within competing groups • Stronger with higher stakes for group competition

o Among individual (non-related) humans by:

§ By cueing human social instincts • Build on reciprocity, reputation, observable contributions,

descriptive norms (Kraft-Todd et al., 2015; Rand et al., 2014) § By making cooperation cheaper

• Lower individual costs, and/or raise group benefits, punishments for free-riding, incentives for cooperation

Cooperation grows best in groups

• With strong group properties o Group members are: generous, reciprocal o Group members share characteristics: Similarity, shared identity, common

interests, location o Good leadership

• With strong institutions o EXAMPLE: Ostrom’s Principles for effective common pool resource management

(Ostrom, 1990) 1. Boundaries for sharing of group benefits; 2. Fair rules for resource use; 3. Collective group decision-making; 4. Monitoring of resource use; 5. Sanctions for those who violate community rules or norms; 6. Conflict resolution that is cheap and easy to access; 7. Self-determination of the group recognized by external authorities; 8. Appropriate relationships with other groups.

Cooperation can spread between groups

• Via competition with other groups o Peaceful group competition can increase public goods (Tan and Bolle, 2007)

§ WARNING: Resource competition breeds extractive institutions • Via between-group migration

o People migrate to better institutions when they can (Gürerk et al., 2006) • Via between-group learning

o Between-group learning for effective resource use breeds sustainability (Waring et al., 2017)

Cooperation isn’t…

• … always needed. o Cooperation is irrelevant when individual and group needs align. Because needs

and goals change for both individuals and groups, one must always check to determine if there is a social dilemma. For example, these relationships may or may not include a social dilemma:

§ Person and family § Employee and employer § Citizen and country

• … a panacea. o People cooperate on bad things too. EXAMPLE: Corruption, cartels, collusion,

nepotism are types of corruption (Muthukrishna, 2017)

Cooperation for Sustainability Research Why Study Cooperation in Sustainability Science?

• Hard sustainability problems contain social dilemmas • Social problems at any scale

o International climate accords o Regional ground water agreements o State solid waste policy or social service provision o Municipal environmental ordinances o Local conservation group volunteerism

• Cooperation unites disciplines o Cooperation unites social sciences & biological sciences o Psychology - Cooperation is rooted in intuition (system 1), not deliberation

(Rand, 2016) o Anthropology - Cooperation is bolstered by culture and institutions (Sosis and

Ruffle, 2003) o Economics - Cooperation responds to costs and benefits (material and social)

(Bowles, 2004; Gintis et al., 2003) o Biology – Cooperation and culture are central human adaptations (Bowles, 2004;

Gintis et al., 2003)

• Cooperation is… o Powerful: Cancer is a failure of cellular cooperation, NYT (Johnson, 2017) o Current: August Scientific American, graph theory (Momeni, 2018) o Fundable: see grant list (funders are interested) o Ubiquitous, applicable, intuitive o Fun!

Measuring Cooperation

• Within groups o With interviews – semi-structured interviews

§ Is collective contribution necessary? Provided? By whom? Is it shared evenly? (never is)

o With surveys – psychology scales, others § Extensivity (how people identify with others) (Einolf, 2010) § Prosociality § Team cohesion survey from sports

o With experiments – cooperation experiments such as PGG, DG, TPP, UG others, measure various types of cooperation and related prosocial behaviors.

§ In the laboratory § In the field (Nettle et al., 2011; Waring, 2011)

o Dimensions: reciprocity, leadership, rules, costs & benefits of “sustainable action”, institutions

• Between groups

o How to design multi-group cooperation research: (Kline et al., 2018) o Measure the spread between groups of cooperation within groups o Enumerate groups:

§ Catalog groups, group differences in conditions, outcomes § Search for group-level factors that make sustainable action more likely

(rules, endowment, location, leadership, etc.) o Measure between-group processes:

§ Gather evidence on between-group learning, imitation of policies § Group creation, dissolution, competition, inter-group migration

Models of cooperation

• There are countless, in game theory, evolutionary game theory, economics, evolutionary biology, agent-base simulation, etc.

o NOTE: Be wary of any model of cooperation that does not include the perpetual free-riding problem.

Core Cooperation Concepts

• Social Dilemma • Balance of Cooperation

o Conservation behaviors and institutions can emerge and spread if the pressure on groups for resource conservation is greater than the pressure on individuals for resource exploitation. (Waring et al., 2015)

o See worksheet and exercise

Applied Cooperation Science Why Apply Cooperation Science?

• Cooperation applies to any social scale • Cooperation typically precedes durable institutional or policy solutions • Policies that target self-interest may backfire (Bowles, 2008) • Conservation poses a cooperative dilemma (Smith and Wishnie, 2000) • Cooperation is not always good, and sometimes must be stopped (collusion, nepotism,

corruption). (Muthukrishna, 2017) • Cooperation interventions can be self-supporting and cheaper

o Humans are natural cooperators and natural free-riders Scoping

• Identify focal action or institution • Identify social context – Is there a social dilemma? • Identify actors and groups – Do relevant groups exist? • Identify appropriate placement relative to problem - Are groups positioned effectively to

be able solve the dilemma locally? • Where is the pressure strongest? – on individuals or on groups?

Growing Cooperation within Groups

• People are not enticed to cooperate, they are rallied!

• Features of the action o Increase salience of contributing action o Enhance observability of contribution o Make contribution intuitive, reflexive instead of deliberative o Improve the benefits to cost ratio (make it cheaper to contribute) o Kickstart reciprocity, reputation, shame

• Features of the group

o Highlight similarity, shared history, identity o Secure group autonomy o Find effective leadership o Strengthen supporting institutions (Ostrom’s Principles) o Collective choice, boundaries, appropriation, monitoring, sanctions, punishments

for free-riding

• PROSOCIAL method (www.prosocial.world) o Core Design Principles of Ostrom o Group Flexibility Training (ACT)

Spreading cooperation between groups • Facilitate between-group learning of sustainable group-level solutions • Encourage healthy competition for conservation, discourage costly competition for

resources • Apply multilevel “Balance of Cooperation” approach (Brooks et al., 2018; Kline et al.,

2018)

Cooperation Science can’t:

• Help get single entities to “cooperate” • Help when cooperation is not necessary

WARNING: AVOID ETHNOCENTRIC SOLUTIONS

• Humans are best as cooperating in groups, but the strongest groups are often unified for bad reasons, such as race or religion. If solutions to collective problems rely on such groups, they will exclude or marginalize others.

Resource List Published Case Examples These case studies use the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation in groups to study the emergence and spread of “solutions” or environmental management institutions. Some have been published as part of a special issue of Sustainability Science. Others more recently.

• Field experiment with electric utility using observable cooperation saves energy o Yoeli, E., Hoffman, M., Rand, D.G., Nowak, M.A., 2013. Powering up with indirect

reciprocity in a large-scale field experiment. PNAS 110, 10424–10429. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1301210110

• Blueberries in Maine

o Samuel P. Hanes & Timothy M. Waring. (2018) Integrating cultural evolution and environmental history: Lessons from the history of blueberry production. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0508-3

• Lobsters in Maine o James M. Acheson & Timothy M. Waring. (2018) Evidence of Cultural Group

Selection in Territorial Lobstering in Maine. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0501-x

• Irrigation in Bali o Brooks, J., Reyes-García, V. & Burnside, W. (2018) Re-examining balinese subaks

through the lens of cultural multilevel selection. Sustainability Science 13: 35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0453-1

• Forestry in Pemba, Tanzania

o Andrews, J. & Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (2018) Cultural group selection and the design of REDD+: insights from Pemba. Sustainability Science 13: 93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0489-2

• Bay Oil in Dominica o Macfarlan, S.J., Remiker, M., 2018. Cultural multi-level selection and biological

market theory explain the coupled dynamics of labor exchange cooperation and social support. Sustainability Science 13, 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0481-x

• Viticulture in California

o Hillis, V., Bell, A., Brandt, J., Brooks, J.S. Applying a cultural multilevel selection framework to the adoption of sustainable management practices in California

viticulture. Sustainability Science (2018) 13, 71–80. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0515-4

• Fishing in Zanzibar

o Gehrig, S., Schlüter, A., Jiddawi, N.S., 2018. Overlapping identities: The role of village and occupational group for small-scale fishers’ perceptions on environment and governance. Marine Policy 96, 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2018.06.017

• Irrigation in Sri Lanka

o Tozier de la Poterie, A., Burchfield, E., Carrico, A., 2018. The implications of group norms for adaptation in collectively managed agricultural systems: evidence from Sri Lankan paddy farmers. Ecology and Society 23. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10175-230321

• Oysters in Virgina

o Sam Hanes. in development (unpublished) Cooperation Theory

• Framework: Cooperation Dynamics for Sustainability o Waring, T. M., M. Ann Kline, J. S. Brooks, S. H. Goff, J. Gowdy, M. A. Janssen,

P. E. Smaldino and J. Jacquet. (2015). A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis. Ecology and Society 20 (2): 34. [online, pdf]

• Model: Proof of Concept

o Timothy M. Waring, Goff, S.H., & Smaldino P.E. (2017) The coevolution of economic institutions and sustainable consumption via cultural group selection. Ecological Economics, 131 524–532 [pdf, model, online]

• How to: Design cooperation research for sustainability

o Kline, M.A., Waring, T.M., Salerno, J., 2018. Designing cultural multilevel selection research for sustainability science. Sustainability Science 13, 9–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0509-2

Applied Cooperation

• How to grow cooperation o Rand, D.G., Yoeli, E., Hoffman, M., 2014. Harnessing Reciprocity to Promote

Cooperation and the Provisioning of Public Goods. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1, 263–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732214548426

• Cooperation-based interventions often more effective than cost-benefit interventions

o Kraft-Todd, G., Yoeli, E., Bhanot, S., Rand, D., 2015. Promoting cooperation in the field. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Social behavior 3, 96–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.02.006

o Bowles, S., 2008. Policies Designed for Self-Interested Citizens May Undermine “The Moral Sentiments”: Evidence from Economic Experiments. Science 320, 1605–1609. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1152110

• Cooperation is intuitive, self-interest is deliberative

o Rand, D.G., 2016. Cooperation, Fast and Slow: Meta-Analytic Evidence for a Theory of Social Heuristics and Self-Interested Deliberation. Psychol Sci 27, 1192–1206. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616654455

Research and Application Groups

• Yale/MIT Applied Cooperation Team (https://act.yale.edu/) o Electricity consumption.

• Centre for Global Cooperation Research (https://www.gcr21.org/en/) o Climate change, peace, migration, internet

• Athena Aktapis’ Lab, ASU o http://www.aktipislab.org/ o http://www.athenaaktipis.org/

• Human Generosity Project o http://www.humangenerosity.org/

• UMaine o Waring Lab: Cooperatives, local food, sustainability

Grants on Cooperation - NSF

• CAREER: The Evolution of Local Food Organizations Award Number:1352361; Principal Investigator:Timothy Waring; Co-Principal Investigator:; Organization:University of Maine;NSF Organization:SES Start Date:07/01/2014; Award Amount:$523,900.00; Relevance:88.43

• CNH-S: What Does It Take to Cooperate Over Transboundary Groundwater Resources? Award Number:1824951; Principal Investigator:Marc Muller; Co-Principal Investigator:Diogo Bolster, Bruce Huber, Michele Muller-Itten; Organization:University of Notre Dame;NSF Organization:ICER Start Date:08/01/2018; Award Amount:$749,932.00; Relevance:43.0;

• EAGER: Game-theoretic Approaches to Energy Cooperation

Award Number:1748725; Principal Investigator:Aylin Yener; Co-Principal Investigator:; Organization:Pennsylvania State Univ University Park;NSF Organization:ECCS Start Date:09/01/2017; Award Amount:$129,917.00; Relevance:37.44

• CAREER: The Developmental Origins of Human Cooperation

Award Number:1760238; Principal Investigator:Felix Warneken; Co-Principal Investigator:; Organization:University of Michigan Ann Arbor;NSF Organization:BCS Start Date:03/01/2018; Award Amount:$192,866.00; Relevance:43.0;

• EAGER: Scaling-up Cooperation across Cultural Groups

Award Number:1550074; Principal Investigator:Caitlin Stern; Co-Principal Investigator:; Organization:Santa Fe Institute;NSF Organization:BCS Start Date:09/01/2015; Award Amount:$34,800.00; Relevance:43.0

• COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Evolution of Cooperation in Social Woodpeckers

Award Number:1455900; Principal Investigator:Eric Walters; Co-Principal Investigator:; Organization:Old Dominion University Research Foundation;NSF Organization:IOS Start Date:08/01/2015; Award Amount:$410,387.00; Relevance:37.44

John Templeton Foundation funds cooperation research

• www.templeton.org

Further Reading

Axelrod, R., Hamilton, W.D., 1981. The Evolution of Cooperation. Science, 3 211, 1390–1396. Bowles, S., 2008. Policies Designed for Self-Interested Citizens May Undermine “The Moral

Sentiments”: Evidence from Economic Experiments. Science 320, 1605–1609. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1152110

Bowles, S., 2004. Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution, Roundtable Series in Behavioral Economics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Boyd, R., Richerson, P.J., Henrich, J., 2011. The cultural niche: Why social learning is essential for human adaptation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, 10918–10925. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1100290108

Brooks, J.S., Waring, T.M., Borgerhoff Mulder, M., Richerson, P.J., 2018. Applying cultural evolution to sustainability challenges: an introduction to the special issue. Sustainability Science 13, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0516-3

Einolf, C., 2010. Does extensivity form part of the altruistic personality? An empirical test of Oliner and Oliner’s theory. Social Science Research 39, 142–151.

Gintis, H., Bowles, S., Boyd, R., Fehr, E., 2003. Explaining altruistic behavior in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.

Gürerk, Ö., Irlenbusch, B., Rockenbach, B., 2006. The Competitive Advantage of Sanctioning Institutions. Science 312, 108–111. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1123633

Henrich, J., 2015. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Princeton University Press.

Johnson, G., 2017. Cellular ‘Cheaters’ Give Rise to Cancer. The New York Times. Kline, M.A., Waring, T.M., Salerno, J., 2018. Designing cultural multilevel selection research for

sustainability science. Sustainability Science 13, 9–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0509-2

Kraft-Todd, G., Yoeli, E., Bhanot, S., Rand, D., 2015. Promoting cooperation in the field. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Social behavior 3, 96–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.02.006

Momeni, N., 2018. How Can We Promote Cooperation in an Uncooperative Society? [WWW Document]. Scientific American Blog Network. URL https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-can-we-promote-cooperation-in-an-uncooperative-society/ (accessed 9.18.18).

Muthukrishna, M., 2017. Corruption, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Prosocial Institutions (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 3082315). Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY.

Nettle, D., Colléony, A., Cockerill, M., 2011. Variation in Cooperative Behaviour within a Single City. PLoS ONE 6, e26922. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0026922

Nowak, M.A., 2006. Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation. Science 314, 1560–1563. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1133755

Ostrom, E., 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press.

Rand, D.G., 2016. Cooperation, Fast and Slow: Meta-Analytic Evidence for a Theory of Social Heuristics and Self-Interested Deliberation. Psychol Sci 27, 1192–1206. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616654455

Rand, D.G., Yoeli, E., Hoffman, M., 2014. Harnessing Reciprocity to Promote Cooperation and the Provisioning of Public Goods. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1, 263–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732214548426

Smith, E.A., Wishnie, M., 2000. Conservation and Subsistence in Small-Scale Societies. Annual Review of Anthropology 29, 493–524.

Sosis, R., Ruffle, B.J., 2003. Religious Ritual and Cooperation: Testing for a Relationship on Israeli Religious and Secular Kibbutzim. Current Anthropology 44, 713–722. https://doi.org/10.1086/379260

Tan, J.H.W., Bolle, F., 2007. Team competition and the public goods game. Economics Letters 96, 133–139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2006.12.031

Waring, T.M., 2011. Ethnic Forces in Collective Action: Diversity, Dominance, and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu. Ecology and Society 16, 1.

Waring, T.M., Goff, S.H., Smaldino, P.E., 2017. The coevolution of economic institutions and sustainable consumption via cultural group selection. Ecological Economics 131, 524–532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.09.022

Waring, T.M., Kline, M.A., Brooks, J.S., Goff, S.H., Gowdy, J., Janssen, M.A., Smaldino, P.E., Jacquet, J., 2015. A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis. Ecology and Society 20. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07634-200234

Wilson, E.O., 2013. The Social Conquest of Earth, 1 edition. ed. Liveright, New York; London. Manfred Milinski (MPI EVBIO) at World Economic Forum on Reputation and Cooperation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTT8j3wZyMs