Tutorial 3 - Article 1: Human Cooperation and the Crises of Climate Change, COVID-19, and Misinformation

Question 1

What are the 3 cooperation crises mentioned in the article?

Answer 1

Climate Change, COVID-19 and Misinformation (fake news)

Question 2

What are social dilemmas?

Answer 2

Situations in which a noncooperative course of action can be tempting for an individual in that it yields superior (often short-term) outcomes for the self and in which, if all would pursue this noncooperative course of aciton, all would be worse off than if all had cooperated

Question 3

Why is human cooperation somehwat surprising/contradicting?

Answer 3

Natural selection and survival of the fittest have fundamental selfish logic

Question 4

What are the five mechanisms involved in the evolution of cooperation?

Answer 4

(1) kin selection
(2) spatial selection
(3) group selection
(4) direct reciprocity
(5) reputation

Question 5

What is kin selection?

Answer 5

The evolution of cooperation among genetically related individuals (favoring the gene for reproduction)

Question 6

What is spatial selection?

Answer 6

The development of cooperation within networks of individuals due to clustering of individuals with similar strategies (cooperators are more likely to receive the benefits of others’ cooperation)

Question 7

What is group (or multilevel) selection?

Answer 7

The development of cooperation within particular gorups that are sufficiently impermeable that defectors are unlikely to arise (while defectors may outcompete cooperators individually, a group entirely made up of cooperators will outcompete a group made entirely of defectors)

Question 8

What is direct reciprocity?

Answer 8

Responding with a similar strategy to what others are doing (cooperative vs non-cooperative)

Question 9

What is reputation?

Answer 9

The impression formed of a person influenced by how this person has had interactions in the past

Question 10

What are the evolutionary mechanisms based on similarity between interaction partners?

Answer 10

Kin selection, spatial selection and group selection

Question 11

What are the evolutionary mechanisms based on repeated interaction?

Answer 11

Direct reciprocity and reputation

Question 12

How do social norms relate to reputation?

Answer 12

Social norms determine what is required to earn a good reputation

Question 13

What is conditional cooperation?

Answer 13

One needs to cooperate today in order to receive the benefit of others cooperating with them in the future

Question 14

Why are repeated group level cooperation dilemmas more challenging than repeated dyadic cooperation?

Answer 14

It is harder to know who is responsible for potential failure or non-cooperation / hard to hold any single individual accountable

Question 15

How can group level cooperation dilemmas be made less ‘challenging’?

Answer 15

By making decisions and information observable / publically available, or by having more pairwise interactions across the group

Question 16

What is signaling?

Answer 16

A way in which reputation can promote cooperation. One cooperates as a way to attract new partners (signaling others that they will benefit from interacting with you)

Question 17

What are two ways of signaling described in the article?

Answer 17

Costly signaling & Credibly signaling

Question 18

What are the three broad prosocial preferences that play a role in regard for others (even strangers) that leads to cooperation that is not fueled by self-interest

Answer 18

(1) positive regard for others
(2) positive regard for ingroups (parochialism)
(3) positive regard for equality (egalitarianism)

Question 19

What are some arguments/examples for positive regard for others?

Answer 19

(1) Dictator game, where people rarely keep all the money, but share instead
(2) social mindfulness, the concept that people leave choices to others (not picking the last cherry yogurt but picking a different one)

Question 20

What are some arguments / examples for positive regard for ingroups (parochialism)?

Answer 20

(1) Seen as a positive regard for one’s own group, benefit
(2) It is consistent with evolutionary mechanmisms (cooperating more with family and same genes than with others

Question 21

What is stronger? the positive regard for the ingroup? or the hate for the outgroup?

Answer 21

Positive regard for ingroup

Question 22

How are (1) social dominance orientation (a preference to see hierarhical structure in groups), (2) empathic conern, and (3) a concern with equality related to ingroups and outgroups?

Answer 22

(1) Social dominance orientation is related to positive concern with the ingroup and hostile outlook at outgroups
(2) Empathic concern is predictive of cooperation with the ingroup without hostility to the outgroup
(3) A key predictor of universal cooperation

Question 23

What are some arguments / examples for positive regard for equality (egalitarianism)?

Answer 23

(1) Most people have a tendency to appreciate equality in outcomes and dislike inequality in outcomes

Question 24

Why is the climate change crisis a difficult social dilemma?

Answer 24

(1) It is rather abstract
(2) It has a large distance in time (its effects are not immediate dangers)
(3) taking action will not yield results for a long time
(4) It has a strong distance from the self (the effects of individuals’ actions affect a large and abstract collective, making people feel less responsible)
(5) It has a large distance from the ingroup (the ingroup is close to the self but distant from the large collective)

Question 25

What are some psychological solutions to the social dilemma of climate change?

Answer 25

(1) enhance proximity by highlighting harm to nature and emphasize that harmful effects have an impact on the here and now
(2) Name concrete examples to reduce abstractness and distance from self
(3) Emphasize that the young and vulnerable (kinship/ingroup) will suffer most

Question 26

Why is the COVID-19 crisis a difficult social dilemma?

Answer 26

(1) One’s actions affect not only the agent but also the health of others
(2) There are substantial differences in risk amon individuals (young vs elderly)
(3) There is a lot of uncertainty and lack of information, which reduces trust in others’ cooperativeness
(4) There are multiple collectives, resulting in a multi-level social dilemma (family level, one’s genetically related others, the community or network of friends, the national level, the international level

Question 27

Why is the misinformation crisis a difficult social dilemma?

Answer 27

(1) societal ills generated by misinformation stand in tension with various individual benefits
(2) Lack of attention and existing knowledge results in sharing instead of critical assessment
(3) Some people knowingly share misinformation for their own benefit (increased post engagement, advancing a political agenda, etc.)

Question 28

Why is the misinformation crisis so difficult to solve?

Answer 28

(1) It requires a lot of effort from individuals, for something that they may not seem as a direct issue that affects the self or the in-group.
(2) Social media platforms have difficulty in adequately capturing and filtering misinformation without running into censorship issues