IF people are not altruistic by nature, are they cooperative?
Mutual aid has tremendous survival value. But under what conditions do people cooperate? The game of the Prisoner’s Dilemma may shed light on this. Suppose you and your partner commit burglary. Both of you are picked up by the police who then question you one by one. There is not enough evidence to convict you unless one of you confess. The interrogator gives you a choice to cooperate or not.
What should you do? The consequences depend for you depend on what your partner does. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that both of you would be better off denying the crime (1 year). But from your point of view, it seems best to confess (freedom). The problem is that you don’t know what your partner will do. IF your partner betrays you, it is better that you betray him and get 3 years in prison, instead of the 10 years you get if you deny, but your partner ends up confessing. If on the other hand your partner denies, it is still better that you confess because this way you will be free, instead of the 1 year you get if you deny.
Since both you and your partner follow this “logic” and confess, you will both go to jail for 3 years. Doing what you believe is in your best interest leads to a worse outcome than if you cooperate and deny. But here is the dilemma. You don’t know if you can trust your partner. Cooperation only works if you and your partner can trust each other.
Tests show that if people plat the game over and over, they learn that it is more profitable to cooperate. Repetition tests trust. Trust is key and fragile. It can vanish in a moment. As the 19th century American President Abraham Lincoln wrote: “If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”
Another way to create cooperation is to let partners communicate during the game. Talking encourages cooperation. Since people are social animals, they may change their behavior to keep others goodwill. In the end, it’s a matter of trust and giving individuals an incentive to cooperate.
“At the moment of action, man will no doubt be apt to follow the stronger impulse; and though this may occasionally prompt him to the noblest deeds, it will far more commonly lead him to gratify his own desires at the expense of other men. But after their gratification, when past and weaker impressions are contrasted with the ever-enduring social instincts, retribution will surely come. Man will then feel dissatisfied with himself and will resolve with more or less force to act differently in the future. This is conscience; for conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, including that kind of dissatisfaction, which we call regret, and if severe, remorse.”
The strategy that is effective in the long run is a modern version of “a tooth for a tooth” or TIT-FOR-TAT. It says that we should cooperate at the first meeting and then do whatever our “opponent” did the last time. When our opponent cooperates, we should cooperate. When our opponent doesn’t cooperate, we should retaliate. Then forgive and go back to cooperating next round. This rewards past cooperation and punishes past defection. This assumes that the game is repeated time after time. We never know if we will meet our opponent again in the future. As long as neither our opponent nor we know when the game ends, it pays to be nice. Of course, the game of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is only a two-player game. Reality often involves many-person interactions.
There is one group that scientists say we treat better than others – our close genetic relatives. This is kin selection. We act altruistic to our kin because they share our genes. Studies show that in all species, relatives are more likely to help each other. The greater degree of genetic relatedness between two individuals, the more likely it is that an individual treats the other individual better. If you sacrifice something for your children, it may harm you but since your children are your genes, the overall effect is positive. Scientists say that one test of kin selection is what we would do if a relative and a good friend were both close to drowning. We can only save one of them. What if one of them was a distant cousin that you’d only seen twice in your life and the friend was a person that you spent every day with?