An experimental study of cooperation in a natural setting

Résumé 0

"during the last several decades research in social behavior has allowed to differentiate at least two different types of interactions: cooperation and com-petition. Specifically, several attempts have been made to predict and explain cooperative behavior. Typically, it has been studied using artificial situations (e.g. azrin & lindsley, 1956; cohen & lindsley, 1964; lindsley, 1966; Mithaug & Burgess, 1967, 1968; schmitt, 1987; schmitt & Marwell, 1968; shimoff & Matthews, 1975), being the most typical matrix games like the Prisoner’s dilemma, but recent studies have incorporated more naturalistic situations. following the research initiated by Ribes-iñesta (Ribes-iñesta, 2001; Ribes-iñesta & Rangel, 2002) we show how a computerized puzzle-solving task can be used to improve our knowledge of dyadic interactions, as minimal settings representative of social behavior. in three studies, the candidates for a job position could cooperate or not cooperate with another candidate by helping with the other’s puzzles. Results show that the behaviors could be classified in three groups: non-cooperation, graded cooperation, and systematic coop-eration. these behavioral tendencies were highly consistent throughout the task and reasonably stable after a one-year interval. their distribution is not independent of gender; females show a higher frequency of non-cooperative behavior than of systematic cooperation, whereas males show the reverse. these results are in accordance with recent reports in the literature (e.g. Kurz-ban & houser, 2001). as previous studies, we demonstrate that the tendency to cooperate is influenced by the cooperative tendency of the others."