Posted by baseball55 on August 30, 2017, at 20:35:19
In reply to Re: volunteering, posted by alexandra_k on August 29, 2017, at 23:35:49
> I keep coming back to Frank... How is it that co-operation is possible, at all?
>
> That's the thing... How could co-operation have evolved? How is it that it managed to evolve at all given the problem of social free-riders (who will take whatever they can get and shirk their responsibilities)?
Humans are naturally cooperative and always have lived in groups. We are too weak physically and our children require too long a period of care to have survived outside of groups. Free-riding is a problem that increases with the size and level of interaction of the group. In small groups or groups where everyone's actions are eventually widely known, free-riding is much less of a problem.Economists and psychologists have done a lot of experiments on whether people will cooperate or free-ride under various circumstances. Findings: people who are made to feel that they are "special" or "powerful" in some way are more likely to free-ride. People are more likely to free-ride when they are anonymous and won't participate in future experiments with those with whom they are interacting. An interesting factoid (I am an economist): subjects for these experimental games are usually college students. Economics students who take classes with right-wing, free-market ideologues (and there are a lot of those in economics) are more likely to free-ride.
poster:baseball55
thread:1094743
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20160906/msgs/1094769.html