Topic Area 8.5: The Social Structural Foundations of Reputation, Cooperation and Prosocial Behavior
Abstract
This project aims to solve a fundamental challenge to the problem of social order by examining the conditions under which individuals cooperate with one another to enhance the overall survival and well-being of the collective. Traditionally, this problem has been addressed by modeling human behavior in social dilemmas (i.e., situations in which individual and collective interests are at odds, such as contributing to infrastructure). This project takes a novel approach arguing that social structures Ð defined as relationships among actors Ð promote cooperation and social order. The researchers propose that formal structural regularities determine actor incentives and consequently, behaviors. What is more, it is argued and will be tested that the opportunity to alter social structures drives cooperation, particularly among individuals with prosocial predispositions. Furthermore, the researchers propose to capture the robustness of these structures (i.e., the strength with which these structures determine behavior among actors). The structural regularities and relationships among actors within a group and between groups can be formally modeled, leading to predictions regarding the degree of cooperation a group will exhibit. This is an exceptionally novel theoretical approach to the problem of social order, insofar as existing theories and models have ignored the fact that relations among humans are, in fact, highly structured by formal positions and distributions of resources within and between populations. The researchers will begin by integrating a novel representation of formal structure with existing models of social dilemma behavior that have long been the mainstay of studies of cooperation. The researchers focus primarily on psychological predispositions and resource distributions in developing the initial models. They will be tested in a series of experiments using traditional social dilemma operationaliztions and manipulations. The experiments, however, will embed subjects within dynamic social structures. The researchers propose that the structure can be dynamic, particularly as successful players in the social dilemmas emerge and garner more of the group s resources. This evolutionary characteristic of group dynamics is another innovative aspect of the researchersÕ theoretical and mathematical models. Furthermore, the researchers will attempt to incorporate both individual and relational concepts in the models, to test the hypotheses that both individual and collective aspects contribute to cooperation and the maintenance of social order. The researchers will employ a crowdsourcing strategy for the experiments using MTurk to recruit subjects from a broad range of social backgrounds, addressing a common critique of university-based experiments that rely primarily on student populations. This also enables large-scale experimentation, which is impractical with university-based experiments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2017
- Source ID
- W911NF1510131
Entities
People
- Brent Simpson
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of South Carolina