Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness

Jillian J. Jordan; Moshe  Hoffman; Martin A. Nowak; David G. Rand

Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | August 2, 2016

Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness

by Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand

Abstract

Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an answer: people cooperate in an uncalculating way to signal their trustworthiness to observers. We present two economic game experiments in which uncalculating versus calculating decision-making is operationalized by either a subject’s choice of whether to reveal the precise costs of cooperating (Exp. 1) or the time a subject spends considering these costs (Exp. 2). In both experiments, we find that participants are more likely to engage in uncalculating cooperation when their decision-making process is observable to others. Furthermore, we confirm that people who engage in uncalculating cooperation are perceived as, and actually are, more trustworthy than people who cooperate in a calculating way. Taken together, these data provide the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, that uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness, and is not merely an efficient decision-making strategy that reduces cognitive costs. Our results thus help to explain a range of puzzling behaviors, such as extreme altruism, the use of ethical principles, and romantic love.

Keywords: Social Evaluation; experimental economics; moral psychology; Cooperation; Reputation; Decision Making;

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Citation:

Jordan, Jillian J., Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak, and David G. Rand. "Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 31 (August 2, 2016): 8658–8663.

Article | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Signaling When Nobody Is Watching: A Reputation Heuristics Account of Outrage and Punishment in One-shot Anonymous Interactions

Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand

Moralistic punishment can confer reputation benefits by signaling trustworthiness to observers. However, why do people punish even when nobody is watching? We argue that people often rely on the heuristic that reputation is typically at stake, such that reputation concerns can shape moralistic outrage and punishment even in one-shot anonymous interactions. We then support this account using data from Amazon Mechanical Turk. In anonymous experiments, subjects (total n = 8,440) report more outrage in response to others’ selfishness when they cannot signal their trustworthiness through direct prosociality (sharing with a third party)—such that if the interaction were not anonymous, punishment would have greater signaling value. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggest that sharing opportunities reduce outrage by influencing reputation concerns. Additionally, anonymous experiments measuring costly punishment (total n = 6,076) show the same pattern: subjects punish more when sharing is not possible. Moreover, and importantly, moderation analyses provide some evidence that sharing opportunities do not merely reduce outrage and punishment by inducing empathy toward selfishness or hypocrisy aversion among non-sharers. Finally, we support the specific role of heuristics by investigating individual differences in deliberateness. Less deliberative individuals (who typically rely more on heuristics) are more sensitive to sharing opportunities in our anonymous punishment experiments, but, critically, not in punishment experiments where reputation is at stake (total n = 3,422); and not in our anonymous outrage experiments (where condemning is costless). Together, our results suggest that when nobody is watching, reputation cues nonetheless can shape outrage and—among individuals who rely on heuristics—costly punishment.

Keywords: signaling; Morality; trustworthiness; anger; third-party punishment; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Trust; Reputation;

Citation:

Jordan, Jillian J., and David G. Rand. "Signaling When Nobody Is Watching: A Reputation Heuristics Account of Outrage and Punishment in One-shot Anonymous Interactions." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 118, no. 1 (January 2020). View Details

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Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness

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