public goods game

When it comes to encouraging people to work together for the greater good, carrots work better than sticks. That's the message from a new study showing that rewarding people for good behaviour is better at promoting cooperation than punishing them for offences. David Rand from Harvard University asked teams of volunteers to play "public goods games", where they could cheat or cooperate with each other for real money. After many rounds of play, the players were more likely to work together if they could reward each other for good behaviour or punish each other for offences. But of these two…
Humans have an extraordinary capacity for selflessness. We often help complete strangers who are unrelated to us, who we may never meet again and who are unlikely to be able to return the favour. More and more, we are being asked to behave in selfless ways to further the common good, not least in the race to tackle climate change. Given these challenges, it's more important than ever to understand the roots of cooperative behaviour. From an evolutionary point of view, it can be a bit puzzling because any utopic society finds itself vulnerable to slackers, who can prosper at the expense of…