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Cooperation

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For other uses, see Cooperation (disambiguation).
This article is about Cooperation as used in the social sciences. For co-operation in evolution, see Co-operation (evolution). For the economic model, see Cooperative.
Many animal species cooperate with each other in mutual symbiosis. One example is the ocellaris clownfish, which dwells among the tentacles of Ritteri sea anemones. The anemones provide the clownfish with protection from their predators (which cannot tolerate the stings of the sea anemone's tentacles), while the fish defend the anemones against butterflyfish (which eat anemones)

Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English) is the process of groups of organisms working or acting together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit.[1] Many animal and plant species cooperate both with other members of their own species and with members of other species (symbiosis or mutualism).[2]

Among humans

Humans cooperate for the same reasons as other animals: immediate benefit, genetic relatedness, and reciprocity, but also for particularly human reasons, such as honesty signaling (indirect reciprocity), cultural group selection, and for reasons having to do with cultural evolution.[1]

Language allows humans to cooperate on a very large scale. Certain studies have suggested that fairness affects human cooperation; individuals are willing to punish at their own cost (altruistic punishment) if they believe that they are being treated unfairly.[3][4] Sanfey, et al. conducted an experiment where 19 individuals were scanned using MRI while playing an ultimatum game in the role of the responder.[4] They received offers from other human partners and from a computer partner. Responders refused unfair offers from human partners at a significantly higher rate than those from a computer partner. The experiment also suggested that altruistic punishment is associated with negative emotions that are generated in unfair situations by the anterior insula of the brain.[4]

It has been observed that image scoring, where a participant learns of their counterpart's prior behavior or reputation, promotes cooperative behavior in situations where direct reciprocity is unlikely.[5] This implies that in situations where reputation and status are involved, humans tend to cooperate more.

Among other animals

Cooperation is common in non-human animals. Besides cooperation with an immediate benefit for both actors, this behavior appears to occur mostly between relatives.[1] Spending time and resources assisting a related individual may at first seem destructive to the organism's chances of survival but is actually beneficial over the long-term. Since relatives share part of their genetic make-up, enhancing each other's chances of survival may actually increase the likelihood that the helper's genetic traits will be passed on to future generations.[6] The cooperative pulling paradigm is an experimental design used to assess if and under which conditions animals cooperate. It involves two or more animals pulling rewards towards themselves via an apparatus they can not successfully operate alone.[7]

Some researchers assert that cooperation is more complex than this. They maintain that helpers may receive more direct, and less indirect, gains from assisting others than is commonly reported. Furthermore, they insist that cooperation may not solely be an interaction between two individuals but may be part of the broader goal of unifying populations.[8]

Kin selection

One specific form of cooperation in animals is kin selection, which can be defined as animals helping to rear a relative's offspring in order to enhance their own fitness.[6][8]

Different theories explaining kin selection have been proposed, including the "pay-to-stay" and "territory inheritance" hypotheses. The "pay-to-stay" theory suggests that individuals help others rear offspring in order to return the favor of the breeders allowing them to live on their land. The "territory inheritance" theory contends that individuals help in order to have improved access to breeding areas once the breeders depart. These two hypotheses both appear to be valid, at least in cichlid fish.[9]

Studies conducted on red wolves support previous researchers'[8] contention that helpers obtain both immediate and long-term gains from cooperative breeding. Researchers evaluated the consequences of red wolves' decisions to stay with their packs for extended periods of time after birth. It was found that this "delayed dispersal," while it involved helping other wolves rear their offspring, extended male wolves' life spans. These findings suggest that kin selection may not only benefit an individual in the long-term in terms of increased fitness but in the short-term as well through enhanced chance of survival.[10]

Some research even suggests that certain species provide more help to the individuals with which they are more closely related. This phenomenon is known as kin discrimination.[11] In their meta-analysis, researchers compiled data on kin selection as mediated by genetic relatedness in 18 species, including the Western bluebird, Pied kingfisher, Australian magpie, and Dwarf Mongoose. They found that different species exhibited varying degrees of kin discrimination, with the largest frequencies occurring among those who have the most to gain from cooperative interactions.[11]

Cooperative systems

Cooperation is a process by which the components of a system work together to achieve the global properties.[1] In other words, individual components that appear to be "selfish" and independent work together to create a highly complex, greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts system. The phenomenon is generally known as 'emergence' and is considered an outcome of self-organization.[12] Examples:

  • The components in a cell work together to keep it living.
  • Neurons create thought and consciousness, other cells work together and communicate to produce multicellular organisms.
  • Organisms form food chains and ecosystems.
  • People form families, tribes, cities and nations.
  • Atoms cooperate in a simple way, by combining to make up molecules.

Understanding the mechanisms that create cooperating agents in a system is one of the most important and least well understood phenomena in nature, though there has not been a lack of effort.

Individual action on behalf of a larger system may be coerced (forced), voluntary (freely chosen), or even unintentional, and consequently individuals and groups might act in concert even though they have almost nothing in common as regards interests or goals. Examples of that can be found in market trade, military wars, families, workplaces, schools and prisons, and more generally any institution or organization of which individuals are part (out of own choice, by law, or forced).

Evolution of cooperation in intelligence systems

Evolution of the number of connections of intelligent systems.[13] A - number of synapses between neurons during individual development (ontogenesis) of intelsystem of the human brain, B - number of connections between people in the dynamics of population growth of the human population, C - number of synapses between neurons in the historical evolutionary development (phylogenesis) of nervous systems to the human brain.

Synapse – from the Greek synapsis (συνάψις), meaning "conjunction", in turn from συνάπτεὶν (συν ("together") and ἅπτειν ("to fasten")) – was introduced in 1897 by Charles Sherrington.[14] The relevance of measurements in this direction is confirmed by both modern comprehensive researches of cooperation, and connections of information, genetic, and cultural,[15] due to structures at the neuronal level of the brain,[16] and the importance of cooperation in the development of civilization. In this regard, A. L. Eryomin analyzed the known data on the evolution of the number of connections for cooperation in noogenesis - the evolution of intelligent systems.[13] Connections, contacts between biological objects, can be considered to have appeared with a multicellularity of ~ 3-3.5 billion years ago.[17] The system of high — speed connections of specialized cells that transmit information using electrical signals, the nervous system, in the entire history of life appeared only in one major evolutionary branch: in multicellular animals (Metazoa) and appeared in the Ediacaran period (about 635-542 million years ago).[18] During evolution (phylogeny), the number of connections between neurons increased from one to ~ 7000 synoptic connections of each neuron with other neurons in the human brain. It has been estimated that the brain of a three-year-old child has about of synapses (1 quadrillion). In individual development (ontogenesis), the number of synapses decreases with age to ~ .[19] According to other data, the estimated number of neocortical synapses in the male and female brains decreases during human life from ~ to ~ .[20]

The number of human contacts is difficult to calculate, but the "Dunbar’s number" ~150 stable human connections with other people is fixed in science, the assumed cognitive limit of the number of people with whom it is possible to maintain stable social relations,[21] according to other authors - the range of 100–290. Structures responsible for social interaction have been identified in the brain.[22] With the appearance of Homo sapiens ~50-300 thousand years ago, the relevance of cooperation, its evolution in the human population, increased quantitatively. If 2000 years ago there were 0.1 billion people on Earth, 100 years ago - 1 billion, by the middle of the twentieth century – 3 billion,[23] and by now, humanity - 7.7 billion. Thus, the total number of "stable connections" between people, social relationships within the population, can be estimated by a number ~ ." [13]

The prisoner's dilemma

For many years, the prisoner's dilemma game pointed out that even if all members of a group would benefit if all cooperate, individual self-interest may not favor cooperation. The prisoner's dilemma codifies this problem and has been the subject of much research, both theoretical and experimental. The first extensive experimental studies were conducted in the early 1960s by Anatol Rapoport and Albert Chammah.[24] Results from experimental economics show that humans often act more cooperatively than strict self-interest would seem to dictate. While economic experiments require subjects to make relatively abstract decisions for small stakes, evidence from natural experiments for high stakes support the claim that humans act more cooperatively than strict self-interest would dictate.[25]

One reason may be that if the prisoner's dilemma situation is repeated (the iterated prisoner's dilemma), it allows non-cooperation to be punished more, and cooperation to be rewarded more, than the single-shot version of the problem would suggest. It has been suggested that this is one reason for the evolution of complex emotions in higher life forms.[26][27] Playing the iterated version of the game leads to a cascade of brain signals that relate the speed with which players reciprocate cooperation at subsequent rounds.[28]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Lindenfors, Patrik (2017). For Whose Benefit? The Biological and Cultural Evolution of Human Cooperation. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-50873-3.
  2. ^ Kohn, Alfie (1992). No Contest: The Case Against Competition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-395-63125-6.
  3. ^ Fehr, Ernst (2002). "Altruistic punishment in humans" (PDF). Nature. Macmillan Magazines Ltd. 415 (6868): 137–40. Bibcode:2002Natur.415..137F. doi:10.1038/415137a. PMID 11805825. S2CID 4310962. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
  4. ^ a b c Sanfey, Alan G.; et al. (2003). "The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game" (PDF). Science. 300 (5626): 1755–8. Bibcode:2003Sci...300.1755S. doi:10.1126/science.1082976. PMID 12805551. S2CID 7111382. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
  5. ^ Wedekind, Claus; Milinski, Manfred (5 May 2000). "Cooperation Through Image Scoring in Humans". Science. 288 (5467): 850–852. doi:10.1126/science.288.5467.850. ISSN 0036-8075.
  6. ^ a b Hamilton, W.D. (1964). "The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour". Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–16.
  7. ^ de Waal, Frans (2016). "Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?" ISBN 978-1-78378-305-2, p. 276
  8. ^ a b c Clutton-Brock, T. (2002). "Breeding together: Kin selection and mutualism in cooperative vertebrates". Science, 296(5565), 69–72. doi:10.1126/science.296.5565.69
  9. ^ Balshine-Earn, S., Neat, F.C., Reid, H., & Taborsky, M. (1998). "Paying to stay or paying to breed? Field evidence for direct benefits of helping behavior in a cooperatively breeding fish". Behavioral Ecology, 9(5), 432–38.
  10. ^ Sparkman, A. M., Adams, J. R., Steury, T. D., Waits, L. P., & Murray, D. L. (2011). "Direct fitness benefits of delayed dispersal in the cooperatively breeding red wolf (Canis rufus)". Behavioral Ecology, 22(1), 199–205. doi:10.1093/beheco/arq194
  11. ^ a b Griffin, A. S., & West, S. A. (2003). "Kin Discrimination and the Benefit of Helping in Cooperatively Breeding Vertebrates". Science, 302(5645), 634–36. doi:10.1126/science.1089402
  12. ^ Mobus, G.E. & Kalton, M.C. (2015). Principles of Systems Science, Chapter 8: Emergence, Springer, New York
  13. ^ a b c Eryomin A.L., Zibarev E.V. (2020) Intellectual labour - physiology, hygiene, medicine: retrospective and modern fundamental research. Occupational Health and Industrial Ecology 60(12) 951-957.
  14. ^ Foster, M.; Sherrington, C.S. (1897). Textbook of Physiology, volume 3 (7th ed.). London: Macmillan. p. 929.
  15. ^ Voorhees B., Read D., Gabora L. Identity, kinship, and the evolution of cooperation. Current anthropology. 2020; 2: 194-218.
  16. ^ Rilling, J.K. et al. A Neural Basis for Social Cooperation. Neuron. 2002; 35: 395-405.
  17. ^ Grosberg R.K., Strathmann R.R. The evolution of multicellularity: A minor major transition? Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst. 2007; 38: 621–654.
  18. ^ Budd G. E. Early animal evolution and the origins of nervous systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2015; 370(1684): 20150037.
  19. ^ Drachman D.A. Do we have brain to spare? Neurology. 2005; 64 (12): 2004–5.
  20. ^ Nguyen T. Total number of synapses in the adult human neocortex. Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One+ Two. 2010; 3(1): 26.
  21. ^ Dunbar, R. I. M. Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution. 1992; 22 (6): 469–493.
  22. ^ Walbrin J. et al. Neural responses to visually observed social interactions. Neuropsychologia. 2018; 112: 31-39.
  23. ^ Eryomin A.L. Noogenesis and Theory of Intellect. Krasnodar, 2005. — 356 p. (ISBN 5-7221-0671-2)
  24. ^ Rapoport, A., & Chammah, A. M. (1965). Prisoner’s Dilemma: A study of conflict and cooperation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
  25. ^ van den Assem, van Dolder, and Thaler (2012). "Split or Steal? Cooperative Behavior when the Stakes are Large". SSRN 1592456.
  26. ^ Olsen, Harrington, and Siegelmann (2010). "Conspecific Emotional Cooperation Biases Population Dynamics: A Cellular Automata Approach".
  27. ^ Harrington, Olsen, and Siegelmann (2011). "Communicated Somatic Markers Benefit the Individual and the Species".
  28. ^ Cervantes Constantino, Garat, Nicolaisen, Paz, Martínez-Montes, Kessel, Cabana, and Gradin (2020). "Neural processing of iterated prisoner's dilemma outcomes indicates next-round choice and speed to reciprocate cooperation".

References

External links

  • Media related to Cooperation at Wikimedia Commons
  • An Operation of Cooperation, A book about cooperation and the benefits of this path, as opposed to working alone.
  • Rheingold.com, The Cooperation Project: Objectives, Accomplishments, and Proposals. Howard Rheingold's project with Institute for the Future.
  • Etra.cc, Cooperation platform for transport research (scientific)
  • Imprology.com, The Far Games, a list of games using theatrical improvisation to encourage collaboration and distributed leadership
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