culture and cooperation

Question 1

Do cultures vary in cooperation?

Answer 1

• hemaseth and parks & Vu, and Domino studies: compared cooperation between russia and US, russia more, compared vietnamese and us, viet more, china > US, czech republic > US, dutch = US
• study showing importance of studying many countries at different times for the same type of study. Over time, all the country’s constributions decreased, even if avg contribution varies (real variation; copenhagen 11.5/20 and melbourne 4.9)

Question 2

What is culture

Answer 2

consists of historically ingrained patterns, which act cyclically to continue themself
-part of our environment and our mind (institutions products, and values/beliefs/norms)

Question 3

cultural norms

Answer 3

do cultures possess cooperative norms that ppl are willing to punish others to support?

Question 4

cooperation in small societies

Answer 4

-henrich study: 1762 parts. in 15 pops across the world (small groups, like farming/herding/tribal societies)
had them play 3 types of cooperation games that looked at whether ppl are willing to punish others for being nongenerous/unequal (ultimatum game [how ppl are concerned about equality/inequality, i have 10 euros, decide to give a certain amount to partner, if they decline you both get nothing- what’s the amount that’s low enough that ppl would reject it and get nothing?], 3rd party punishment [can punish the dictator if you think the amount they give is unfair, even though they’re not giving it to you] dictator game[can give however much you want, they can’t reject it).

Question 5

gene-cultural coevolutionary model

Answer 5

hypothesis: willinhness to punish should posibiley relate local social norms of cooperation (altruism)
-in countries that had higher amounts of giving in the dictator game, these countries also had ppl who were more willing to punish others who were noncooperative in the other games
-wide level of variation in the avg amount given in ultimatum game
punishment more effective in some societies than others; one predictor of the effectiveness of punishment was norms of civic cooperation

Question 6

punishment of free riding

Answer 6

across countries, not much variation in punishment of free riding- many ppl are willing to give up what they have to punish non-cooperators
-but large variation in ppl who punish others who contributed MORE than them- some countries hardly any, Muscat it was the same level for free riding and anti-social punishment

Question 7

trust and workings of punihsmnet

Answer 7

• trust in others is another thing that predicts how well punishment works to facilitate cooperation
• trust as a form of social capital (naturally occurs w cooperation
• trust linked w benign perceptions of other’s behavior

Question 8

within vs between culture diffs

Answer 8

gachter study
-examined several studies of the effect of punishmen on cooperation across 16 societies
-grouped several soceities in cultural groups
tested for within group diffs comapred to between group diffs
-found: the variation between ppl was more explained by which cultural group you’re from, rather than which city (like, english speaking, confucian, southern europe; vs bangkok etc)

Question 9

what factors explain variation in punishment vs n condition

Answer 9

a large part of variation in cooperation explained through culture, but not when it wasnt in pusnihment condition