IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/syd/wpaper/2015-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shared intentions: the evolution of collaboration

Author

Listed:
  • Newton, Jonathan

Abstract

The ability to share intentions and adjust one's choices in collaboration with others is a fundamental aspect of human nature. We discuss the forces that would have acted for and against the evolution of this ability for a large class of dilemmas and coordination problems that would have been faced by our hominin ancestors. In contrast to altruism and other non-fitness maximizing preferences, the ability to share intentions proliferates when rare without requiring repeated interaction or assortativity in matching.

Suggested Citation

  • Newton, Jonathan, 2015. "Shared intentions: the evolution of collaboration," Working Papers 2015-05, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:syd:wpaper:2015-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econ-wpseries.com/2015/201505-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bacharach, Michael, 1999. "Interactive team reasoning: A contribution to the theory of co-operation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 117-147, June.
    2. Bomze Immanuel M. & Weibull Jorgen W., 1995. "Does Neutral Stability Imply Lyapunov Stability?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 173-192, November.
    3. Newton, Jonathan & Sawa, Ryoji, 2015. "A one-shot deviation principle for stability in matching problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 1-27.
    4. Klaus, Bettina & Newton, Jonathan, 2016. "Stochastic stability in assignment problems," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-74.
    5. Young, H Peyton, 1993. "The Evolution of Conventions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 57-84, January.
    6. Farrell, Joseph & Maskin, Eric, 1989. "Renegotiation in repeated games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 327-360, December.
    7. Heifetz, Aviad & Shannon, Chris & Spiegel, Yossi, 2007. "What to maximize if you must," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 31-57, March.
    8. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2013. "Homo Moralis—Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2269-2302, November.
    9. Robson, Arthur J., 1996. "The Evolution of Attitudes to Risk: Lottery Tickets and Relative Wealth," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 190-207, June.
    10. Samuelson, Larry, 2001. "Introduction to the Evolution of Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 225-230, April.
    11. Morton Deutsch, 1958. "Trust and suspicion," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 2(4), pages 265-279, December.
    12. Evans, Robert & Maskin, Eric, 1989. "Efficient renegotiation--proof equilibria in repeated games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 361-369, December.
    13. Newton, Jonathan & Angus, Simon D., 2015. "Coalitions, tipping points and the speed of evolution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 172-187.
    14. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Peleg, Bezalel & Whinston, Michael D., 1987. "Coalition-Proof Nash Equilibria I. Concepts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-12, June.
    15. Eddie Dekel & Jeffrey C. Ely & Okan Yilankaya, 2007. "Evolution of Preferences -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 685-704.
    16. Simon D Angus & Jonathan Newton, 2015. "Emergence of Shared Intentionality Is Coupled to the Advance of Cumulative Culture," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-12, October.
    17. Chen, Bo & Fujishige, Satoru & Yang, Zaifu, 2016. "Random decentralized market processes for stable job matchings with competitive salaries," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 25-36.
    18. Sawa, Ryoji, 2014. "Coalitional stochastic stability in games, networks and markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 90-111.
    19. Russell Cooper & Douglas V. DeJong & Robert Forsythe & Thomas W. Ross, 1992. "Communication in Coordination Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 739-771.
    20. Daniel Balliet, 2010. "Communication and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: A Meta-Analytic Review," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(1), pages 39-57, February.
    21. Michael Bacharach, 2006. "The Hi-Lo Paradox, from Beyond Individual Choice: Teams and Frames in Game Theory," Introductory Chapters, in: Natalie Gold & Robert Sugden (ed.),Beyond Individual Choice: Teams and Frames in Game Theory, Princeton University Press.
    22. Newton, Jonathan, 2012. "Coalitional stochastic stability," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 842-854.
    23. Theodore C. Bergstrom, 2003. "The Algebra of Assortative Encounters and the Evolution of Cooperation," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(03), pages 211-228.
    24. Sugden, Robert, 2000. "Team Preferences," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 175-204, October.
    25. Ambrus, Attila, 2009. "Theories of Coalitional Rationality," Scholarly Articles 3204917, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    26. Ambrus, Attila, 2009. "Theories of coalitional rationality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 676-695, March.
    27. David P. Myatt & Chris Wallace, 2008. "When Does One Bad Apple Spoil the Barrel? An Evolutionary Analysis of Collective Action," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(2), pages 499-527.
    28. Newton, Jonathan, 2012. "Recontracting and stochastic stability in cooperative games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 364-381.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Nax, Heinrich Harald & Newton, Jonathan, 2022. "Deep and shallow thinking in the long run," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(4), November.
    2. Song, Zhao & Guo, Hao & Jia, Danyang & Perc, Matjaž & Li, Xuelong & Wang, Zhen, 2021. "Third party interventions mitigate conflicts on interdependent networks," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 403(C).
    3. Rusch, Hannes, 2019. "The evolution of collaboration in symmetric 2×2-games with imperfect recognition of types," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 118-127.
    4. Yuval Heller & Christoph Kuzmics, 2019. "Renegotiation and Coordination with Private Values," Graz Economics Papers 2019-10, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    5. Heinrich H. Nax & Ryan O. Murphy & Stefano Duca & Dirk Helbing, 2017. "Contribution-Based Grouping under Noise," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-23, November.
    6. Heller, Yuval & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2020. "Communication, Renegotiation and Coordination with Private Values (Extended Version)," MPRA Paper 102926, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Jul 2021.
    7. Eleonora Herrera-Medina & Antoni Riera Font, 2023. "A Game Theoretic Approach to Collaboration in Policy Coordination," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-9, October.
    8. Newton, Jonathan & Wait, Andrew & Angus, Simon D., 2019. "Watercooler chat, organizational structure and corporate culture," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 354-365.
    9. Heller, Yuval & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2024. "Communication, renegotiation and coordination with private values," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 51-76.
    10. Newton, Jonathan & Sercombe, Damian, 2020. "Agency, potential and contagion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 79-97.
    11. Jonathan Newton, 2019. "Agency Equilibrium," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-15, March.
    12. Khalil, Elias L., 2020. "The isomorphism hypothesis: The prisoner's dilemma as intertemporal allocation, and vice versa," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 735-746.
    13. Alger, Ingela & Lehmann, Laurent & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2018. "Evolution of preferences in group-structured populations: genes, guns, and culture," TSE Working Papers 18-888, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Oct 2019.
    14. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    15. Mathias Spichtig & Martijn Egas, 2019. "When and How Does Mutation-Generated Variation Promote the Evolution of Cooperation?," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, January.
    16. Simon D Angus & Jonathan Newton, 2020. "Collaboration leads to cooperation on sparse networks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, January.
    17. Bayer, Péter, 2023. "Evolutionarily stable networks," TSE Working Papers 23-1487, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    18. Eleonora Herrera-Medina & Antoni Riera Font, 2023. "A Multiagent Game Theoretic Simulation of Public Policy Coordination through Collaboration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-20, August.
    19. Caleb M. Koch & Heinrich H. Nax, 2022. "Groundwater Usage and Strategic Complements: Part I (Instrumental Variables)," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-19, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    2. Newton, Jonathan & Wait, Andrew & Angus, Simon D., 2019. "Watercooler chat, organizational structure and corporate culture," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 354-365.
    3. Newton, Jonathan & Sercombe, Damian, 2020. "Agency, potential and contagion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 79-97.
    4. Hwang, Sung-Ha & Lim, Wooyoung & Neary, Philip & Newton, Jonathan, 2018. "Conventional contracts, intentional behavior and logit choice: Equality without symmetry," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 273-294.
    5. Jonathan Newton, 2019. "Agency Equilibrium," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-15, March.
    6. Newton, Jonathan & Angus, Simon D., 2015. "Coalitions, tipping points and the speed of evolution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 172-187.
    7. Sawa, Ryoji, 2019. "Stochastic stability under logit choice in coalitional bargaining problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 633-650.
    8. Simon D Angus & Jonathan Newton, 2015. "Emergence of Shared Intentionality Is Coupled to the Advance of Cumulative Culture," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-12, October.
    9. Klaus, Bettina & Newton, Jonathan, 2016. "Stochastic stability in assignment problems," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-74.
    10. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Wu, Jiabin, 2018. "The interplay of cultural intolerance and action-assortativity for the emergence of cooperation and homophily," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-18.
    11. Rusch, Hannes, 2019. "The evolution of collaboration in symmetric 2×2-games with imperfect recognition of types," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 118-127.
    12. Heller, Yuval & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Coevolution of deception and preferences: Darwin and Nash meet Machiavelli," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 223-247.
    13. Sawa, Ryoji, 2014. "Coalitional stochastic stability in games, networks and markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 90-111.
    14. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Newton, Jonathan, 2020. "Evolution and Rawlsian social choice in matching," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 68-80.
    15. Simon D Angus & Jonathan Newton, 2020. "Collaboration leads to cooperation on sparse networks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, January.
    16. Norman, Thomas W.L., 2012. "Equilibrium selection and the dynamic evolution of preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 311-320.
    17. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen W. & Lehmann, Laurent, 2020. "Evolution of preferences in structured populations: Genes, guns, and culture," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    18. Burkhard C. Schipper, 2021. "The evolutionary stability of optimism, pessimism, and complete ignorance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 417-454, May.
    19. Alger, Ingela, 2021. "On the evolution of male competitiveness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 228-254.
    20. Alger, Ingela, 2022. "Evolutionarily stable preferences," TSE Working Papers 22-1355, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Dec 2022.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Evolution; shared intentions; norm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:syd:wpaper:2015-05. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Vanessa Holcombe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deusyau.html .

    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.