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ToolsEckel, Catherine C., Fatas, Enrique, Godoy, Sara and Wilson, Rick K. (2016) Group-level selection increases cooperation in the public goods game. PLoS One, 11 (8). ISSN 1932-6203
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Abstract
When groups compete for resources, some groups will be more successful than others, forcing out less successful groups. Group-level selection is the most extreme form of group competition, where the weaker group ceases to exist, becoming extinct. We implement group-level selection in a controlled laboratory experiment in order to study its impact on human cooperation. The experiment uses variations on the standard linear public goods game. Group-level selection operates through competition for survival: the least successful, lowest-earning groups become extinct, in the sense that they no longer are able to play the game. Additional control treatments include group comparison without extinction, and extinction of the least successful individuals across groups. We find that group-level extinction produces very high contributions to the provision of the public good, while group comparison alone or individual extinction fail to cause higher contributions. Our results provide stark evidence that group-level selection enhances within-group cooperation.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | © 2016 Eckel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | Pure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 28 Sep 2016 11:00 |
| Last Modified: | 22 Oct 2022 01:20 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60620 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0157840 |
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