Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation
Many experiments on human cooperation have revealed that individuals differ systematically in their tendency to cooperate with others. It has also been shown that individuals condition their behaviour on the overall cooperation level of their peers. Yet, little is known about how individuals respon...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Nature Publishing Group
2015
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30649/ |
| _version_ | 1848794030602715136 |
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| author | Berg, Pieter van den Molleman, Lucas Junikka, Jaakko Puurtinen, Mikael Weissing, Franz J. |
| author_facet | Berg, Pieter van den Molleman, Lucas Junikka, Jaakko Puurtinen, Mikael Weissing, Franz J. |
| author_sort | Berg, Pieter van den |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Many experiments on human cooperation have revealed that individuals differ systematically in their tendency to cooperate with others. It has also been shown that individuals condition their behaviour on the overall cooperation level of their peers. Yet, little is known about how individuals respond to heterogeneity in cooperativeness in their neighbourhood. Here, we present an experimental study investigating whether and how people respond to heterogeneous behaviour in a public goods game. We find that a large majority of subjects does respond to heterogeneity in their group, but they respond in quite different ways. Most subjects contribute less to the public good when the contributions of their peers are more heterogeneous, but a substantial fraction of individuals consistently contributes more in this case. In addition, we find that individuals that respond positively to heterogeneity have a higher general cooperation tendency. The finding that social responsiveness occurs in different forms and is correlated with cooperativeness may have important implications for the outcome of cooperative interactions. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:09:43Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-30649 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:09:43Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-306492020-05-04T17:24:05Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30649/ Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation Berg, Pieter van den Molleman, Lucas Junikka, Jaakko Puurtinen, Mikael Weissing, Franz J. Many experiments on human cooperation have revealed that individuals differ systematically in their tendency to cooperate with others. It has also been shown that individuals condition their behaviour on the overall cooperation level of their peers. Yet, little is known about how individuals respond to heterogeneity in cooperativeness in their neighbourhood. Here, we present an experimental study investigating whether and how people respond to heterogeneous behaviour in a public goods game. We find that a large majority of subjects does respond to heterogeneity in their group, but they respond in quite different ways. Most subjects contribute less to the public good when the contributions of their peers are more heterogeneous, but a substantial fraction of individuals consistently contributes more in this case. In addition, we find that individuals that respond positively to heterogeneity have a higher general cooperation tendency. The finding that social responsiveness occurs in different forms and is correlated with cooperativeness may have important implications for the outcome of cooperative interactions. Nature Publishing Group 2015-11-04 Article PeerReviewed Berg, Pieter van den, Molleman, Lucas, Junikka, Jaakko, Puurtinen, Mikael and Weissing, Franz J. (2015) Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation. Scientific Reports, 5 . 16144 /1-16144/7. ISSN 2045-2322 Cooperation Heterogeneity Public goods Behavioural experiment http://www.nature.com/articles/srep16144 doi:10.1038/srep16144 doi:10.1038/srep16144 |
| spellingShingle | Cooperation Heterogeneity Public goods Behavioural experiment Berg, Pieter van den Molleman, Lucas Junikka, Jaakko Puurtinen, Mikael Weissing, Franz J. Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation |
| title | Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation |
| title_full | Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation |
| title_fullStr | Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation |
| title_short | Human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation |
| title_sort | human cooperation in groups: variation begets variation |
| topic | Cooperation Heterogeneity Public goods Behavioural experiment |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30649/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30649/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30649/ |