THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Editor Pim Schaaf Master’s Thesis Sociology
2 theories of cooperation, each explained and applied in half a minute
Format: Parsons P., Rees, M. & Blackmore, S. (2010). 30-second Theories. London, UK: Icon Books Ltd.
30-SECOND
REPEATED INTERACTIONS the 30-second theory A repeated game, or iterated 3-SECOND TRASH As Darwinians, we start pessimistically by assuming deep selfishness. And yet from such warped beginnings, something can come that is close to amicable brotherhood and sisterhood. (Dawkins, in Axelrod, 2007).
3-MINUTE THOUGHT When lending through Kiva.org there is no direct communication with the third world entrepreneur that receives the loan nor are there any implications that there ever will be. Succes stories of Kiva.org do mention entrepreneurs that build up their business in a third world country by succesively taking loans. Their success might be related to the theoretical possibilites that repeated interactions offer.
game, is a game in which the players might meet again after the base game is played one or more times. This is an important basis RELATED THEORIES on which cooperation can emerge because see also “the future can cast a shadow back upon the STRONG RECIPROCITY present and thereby affect the current stra- (forthcoming) tegic situation” (Axelrod, 1984). The most clear-cut form of this situation is the iterated REFERENCES prisoner’s dilemma. “This game allows the Axelrod, R. M. (2007). The players to achieve mutual gains from cooper- Evolution of Cooperation. New York, NY: Basic Books. ation, but it also allows for the possibility that one player will exploit the other, or the possibility that neither will cooperate. As in most realistic situations, the players do not have strictly opposing interests.” Axelrod found out that the best strategy to play in this game by, is the so called TIT-FOR-TAT strategy in which the player starts with an unconditional act of cooperation and after that reciprocates the response.
“When should a person cooperate, and when should a person be selfish, in an ongoing interaction with another person?” (Axelrod, 1984)
> Repeated interactions are exactly why you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
COSTLY SIGNALING the 30-second theory Costly signaling is one of the 3-SECOND TRASH Theories of costly signaling attempt to account for a different, perhaps more fundamental question: Why do individuals indirectly reciprocate? What do people see in prosociality that prompts them to offer material rewards to “good citizens?”. (Willer, 2009)
3-MINUTE THOUGHT Providing benefits for third world entrepreneurs through Kiva.org is typically a dyadic interaction that does not provide pecuniary benefit for the lender. Costly signaling might provide an explanation for this behavior because it models the bigger (group) picture in which lenders might signal to peers through the loans they make and by doing so receive indirect reciprocal benefits.
theories that can explain rational cooperation in public goods games. The theory of costly signaling encompasses the idea that RELATED THEORIES signaling can enable cooperative interac- see also tion. In their game-theoretic model Gintis, IMAGE SCORING Smith and Bowles (2001) incorporate the (forthcoming) idea that “cooperative behavior indicates the underlying quality of the signaler, elicit- REFERENCES ing a response from observers that can be Gintis, H., Smith, E.A. & mutually beneficial”. They do this for group Bowles, S. (2001). Costly signaling and cooperation. interaction (many-to-many) in which “no J. theor. Biol. 213, 103-119. repeated or assortative interactions are involved”. They “show that honest signaling Willer, R. (2009), A status of underlying quality by providing a public theory of collective action, good to group members can be evolution- in Shane R. Thye, Edward arily stable, and can proliferate in a popula- J. Lawler (ed.) Altruism and Prosocial Behavior in tion in which it is initially rare, provided that Groups (Advances in Group certain plausible conditions hold, including Processes, Volume 26), a link between group-beneficial signaling Emerald Group Publishing and underlying qualities of the signaler that Limited, pp.133-163. would be of benefit to a potential mate or alliance partner. The model applies to a range of cooperative interactions, including unconditionally sharing individually consumable resources.”
“Cooperation among unrelated individuals has generally been explained by some form of conditional reciprocity.” (Gintis et al. 2001)
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