ISPS EXPERIMENTS WORKSHOP: Jonathan Schulz (Yale), “The Cultural Origin of Cooperation”

Event time: 
Thursday, March 3, 2016 - 4:00pm through 5:00pm
Speaker: 
Jonathan Schulz, Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Psychology, Yale University
Event description: 

Cooperation is an important factor for the well-functioning of societies. In this study we present cross-societal evidence on cooperation in anonymous Public Good games (PGG) with and without punishment. Evidence from 44 societies around the world demonstrates a large degree of heterogeneity in cooperation rates. We find a robust link between the cooperation of strangers in the PGG and the permeability of a society as measured by individualism and the strength of family ties: in individualistic societies, where people frequently interact with strangers and family ties are weak, initial cooperation in the PG without punishment is higher but cooperation is also more conditional on others previous contributions. Further, compared to participants from collectivist societies they react stronger to the exogenous introduction of the punishment option leading to considerable higher cooperation rates in the PG with punishment. Using instrumental variable approaches point to a causal effect of individualism on cooperation - with the cultural differences in individualism rooted in a society’s long-term history.

Wine and cheese will be served.

Open to: 
Yale Community Only
Admission: 
Free