IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v421y2003i6926d10.1038_421912a.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The puzzle of human cooperation

Author

Listed:
  • Ernst Fehr

    (Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zürich)

  • Simon Gächter

    (University of St Gallen)

Abstract

The claim by Johnson et al. that human cooperation in social-dilemma games violates rational-choice theory is not justified1. If people have altruistic aims, altruistic behaviour is a rational means by which to achieve their proximate goals. From an evolutionary viewpoint, we need to explain why humans are often altruistic by strong reciprocity2,3,4. Although kin selection, reciprocal altruism and indirect reciprocity explain relevant forms of human cooperation5,6,7, they do not ultimately explain strong reciprocity8.

Suggested Citation

  • Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2003. "The puzzle of human cooperation," Nature, Nature, vol. 421(6926), pages 912-912, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:421:y:2003:i:6926:d:10.1038_421912a
    DOI: 10.1038/421912a
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/421912a
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/421912a?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. D. Darcet & D. Sornette, 2008. "Quantitative determination of the level of cooperation in the presence of punishment in three public good experiments," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 3(2), pages 137-163, December.
    2. Lespiau, Florence & Hopfensitz, Astrid & Kaminski, Gwenaël, 2021. "Keeping it for yourself or your sister? Experimental evidence on birth order effects on resource distribution between kin and non-kin," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Shen, Yong & Lei, Wei & Kang, Hongwei & Li, Mingyuan & Sun, Xingping & Chen, Qingyi, 2023. "Evolutionary dynamics of public goods game with tax-based rewarding cooperators," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 175(P1).
    4. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:421:y:2003:i:6926:d:10.1038_421912a. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.