Adherence to public institutions that foster cooperation

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Behavioral Economics
• Evolutionary Game Theory

Background:

• Humans value altruism and use moral reputations to guide social behavior.
• Indirect reciprocity relies on monitoring and broadcasting reputations to sustain cooperation.
• Previous models focused on externally imposed monitoring, not independent peer evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a theory for adherence to public monitoring when individuals initially assess reputations independently.
• To investigate how social norms and institutional factors influence the evolution of cooperation.
• To determine the impact of institution size and tolerance on cooperation rates.

Main Methods:

• Developed a mathematical model to simulate the evolution of adherence to moral assessment institutions.
• Analyzed cooperation dynamics under four distinct social norms.
• Examined the effects of institution size and tolerance for anti-social behavior.

Main Results:

• Adherence to public monitoring can evolve and promote cooperation across various social norms.
• Institution size and tolerance significantly affect the rate of cooperation.
• Public monitoring resolves reputation disagreements, increasing cooperation and payoffs.

Conclusions:

• Adherence to public monitoring evolves through social contagion and is robust against displacement.
• Institutions that monitor and broadcast moral reputations are crucial for sustaining cooperation.
• This framework explains cooperation in societies with independent peer reputation assessment.