I’m surprised nobody proposed : “This person is promoting a social norm more stringent than my current behavior, I’ll whack him.”. What’s wrong with it ?
Sure in this case the social norm is actually beneficial to the whacker, but we’re adaptation-executers, not fitness-maximizers.
FWIW I first read this post before this comment was written, then happened to think about it again today and had this idea, and came here to post it.
I do think it’s a dangerous fallacy to assume mutually-altruistic equilibria are optimal—‘I take care of me, you take care of you’ is sometimes more efficient than ‘you take care of me, I take care of you’.
Maybe someone needs to study whether Western countries ever exhibit “antisocial cooperation,” that is, an equilibrium of enforced public contributions in an “inefficient public goods game” where each of four players gets 20% of the central pool. Might be more likely if you structure it as tokens starting out in the center and players have the option to take them? (Call it the ‘enclosure game’, perhaps)
I’ll lump two thoughts in here—one relates to SilentCat the other elsewhere but...
Like others I think this is a great insight and should be looked at by the authors, or other interested social scientists. I think it relates to a question I ask myself from time to time, though generally don’t get too far in answering. Where do we draw the line between public and private spheres of action?
I don’t think that is a fixed/static division over time and seems to have important implication for public policy. I’m tempted to say it might with the above proposed efficiency division. I’m not sure though.
The over-all results and some of the other comments also made me wonder if history—particularly as most of these locations seem to have been former USSR members. I’m just wondering if perhaps the culture legacy would support the behavior if innocent people were just as likely to be punished for what might be actions of other attempting to make everyone’s lives better (but often I suspect viewed as a threat to the authorities and government powers).
Nice idea. Maybe all the tokens should start in the pool and the players should have an option to withdraw them. I guess that would make people feel more explicitly “anti-social” if they did so.
I’m from Eastern Europe and have this tendency. I’ve been quite curious about why for example any kind of activism evokes negative emotions and I think at least in my case the answer seems to be what you’re proposing here. The prevalent attitude in society is to free-ride as much as you can and I’m also doing that. To answer the question from the beginning of the post, if we just let other people make cooperation the new norm, then I’ll be expected to cooperate too. I want to keep not caring about society, so I guess the actions of cooperators cash out emotionally as a threat to the status quo that I want to preserve.
Tell me if this gets too personal, but do defectors evoke positive emotions? (Because they lower societal expectations?) Or negative emotions? (i.e. you have a sweet spot of cooperation and dislike deviations from it?)
If they have similar attitudes to mine, then the feelings are slightly positive, possibly because of receiving validation for my own behaviour. On the other hand, if the defectors are doing worse things, the feelings are fully negative, I don’t think there is any effect as you suggest.
To put things more concretely, I try not to do anything harmful but also don’t do anything that helps society (charity, activism, environmental stuff, etc.) unless I get some concrete benefit. When someone does defect in the way of being actively harmful or breaking laws, then my emotions are negative as I said, but interestingly not as strong as in the case of activists. Perhaps because such behaviour feels normal and expected from other people, or just because it doesn’t feel as much like a threat to me personally.
So I would say that your second suggestion is correct in my case, I do have a sweet spot of cooperation (basically what I do and feel is justified) and dislike deviations from that, with heavier weight on the “more cooperation” direction.
I’m surprised nobody proposed : “This person is promoting a social norm more stringent than my current behavior, I’ll whack him.”. What’s wrong with it ? Sure in this case the social norm is actually beneficial to the whacker, but we’re adaptation-executers, not fitness-maximizers.
FWIW I first read this post before this comment was written, then happened to think about it again today and had this idea, and came here to post it.
I do think it’s a dangerous fallacy to assume mutually-altruistic equilibria are optimal—‘I take care of me, you take care of you’ is sometimes more efficient than ‘you take care of me, I take care of you’.
Maybe someone needs to study whether Western countries ever exhibit “antisocial cooperation,” that is, an equilibrium of enforced public contributions in an “inefficient public goods game” where each of four players gets 20% of the central pool. Might be more likely if you structure it as tokens starting out in the center and players have the option to take them? (Call it the ‘enclosure game’, perhaps)
Ooh, I like this (while being aware that there’s a decent chance I’d be the sort of person who’d unreflectively do it)
I’ll lump two thoughts in here—one relates to SilentCat the other elsewhere but...
Like others I think this is a great insight and should be looked at by the authors, or other interested social scientists. I think it relates to a question I ask myself from time to time, though generally don’t get too far in answering. Where do we draw the line between public and private spheres of action?
I don’t think that is a fixed/static division over time and seems to have important implication for public policy. I’m tempted to say it might with the above proposed efficiency division. I’m not sure though.
The over-all results and some of the other comments also made me wonder if history—particularly as most of these locations seem to have been former USSR members. I’m just wondering if perhaps the culture legacy would support the behavior if innocent people were just as likely to be punished for what might be actions of other attempting to make everyone’s lives better (but often I suspect viewed as a threat to the authorities and government powers).
Nice idea. Maybe all the tokens should start in the pool and the players should have an option to withdraw them. I guess that would make people feel more explicitly “anti-social” if they did so.
I’m from Eastern Europe and have this tendency. I’ve been quite curious about why for example any kind of activism evokes negative emotions and I think at least in my case the answer seems to be what you’re proposing here. The prevalent attitude in society is to free-ride as much as you can and I’m also doing that. To answer the question from the beginning of the post, if we just let other people make cooperation the new norm, then I’ll be expected to cooperate too. I want to keep not caring about society, so I guess the actions of cooperators cash out emotionally as a threat to the status quo that I want to preserve.
Tell me if this gets too personal, but do defectors evoke positive emotions? (Because they lower societal expectations?) Or negative emotions? (i.e. you have a sweet spot of cooperation and dislike deviations from it?)
If they have similar attitudes to mine, then the feelings are slightly positive, possibly because of receiving validation for my own behaviour. On the other hand, if the defectors are doing worse things, the feelings are fully negative, I don’t think there is any effect as you suggest.
To put things more concretely, I try not to do anything harmful but also don’t do anything that helps society (charity, activism, environmental stuff, etc.) unless I get some concrete benefit. When someone does defect in the way of being actively harmful or breaking laws, then my emotions are negative as I said, but interestingly not as strong as in the case of activists. Perhaps because such behaviour feels normal and expected from other people, or just because it doesn’t feel as much like a threat to me personally.
So I would say that your second suggestion is correct in my case, I do have a sweet spot of cooperation (basically what I do and feel is justified) and dislike deviations from that, with heavier weight on the “more cooperation” direction.
Well that’s a mindset I don’t encounter often irl. Do you estimate you’re a central example in your country / culture ?