Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SELFRELIANCE (The Social Dilemma of Self-Reliance)
Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2024-07-31
Cooperation plays a critical role in successfully tackling global challenges. From addressing and preparing for climate change to mitigating the negative impact of pandemics, cooperation helps groups to address and overcome shared challenges. Yet, maintaining cooperation within and between groups can be challenged by free-riding and coordination problems. This project is aimed at contributing to our psychological understanding of how groups face cooperation problems and how they can successfully organise collective action.
So far, we ran a novel laboratory experiment in which we confronted groups of participants with a cooperation dilemma in a controlled environment. This research project allowed us to delineate under what circumstances cooperation can develop not only within, but also between groups. In combination with a mathematical model, we further developed a theory that allows us to define the process under which individuals successfully cooperate within groups and can even transition to cooperation beyond their respective group boundaries.
The model and preliminary empirical evidence allows to draw conclusions about the requirements for the emergence of cooperation within and between groups. Yet, both approaches need to be tested further and ideally in more diverse population under more realistic circumstances.