Is there a discontinuity or a reciprocity effect in cooperation and competition between individuals and groups?

✍ Scribed by Jacob M. Rabbie

• Book ID: 101275882
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 227 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0046-2772
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(199807/08)28:4<483::aid-ejsp907>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

According to our reciprocal interdependence hypothesis, derived from the Behavioural Interaction model (BIM), groups in a Prisoner's Dilemma Game (PDG) will strive more for the long-term goal of mutual cooperation than individuals, provided that the other (programmed) opponent can be expected or trusted to cooperate as well. If the opponent seems to follow a competitive or exploitative strategy groups will behave more competitively than individuals (e.g. Rabbie et al., 1982). In other PDG research it is found that groups are almost invariably more competitive or less cooperative than individuals (e.g. Schopler & Insko 1992). Our conjecture is that this individual±group discontinuity eect may be partly attributed to unique features of the experimental procedures of Schopler and Insko which induce mutual (reciprocal) cooperation between individuals and mutual competition between groups. A review of the evidence seems to provide more support for the reciprocity hypothesis than for the various explanations for the discontinuity eect proposed by Schopler, Insko, and their associates.