Cognitive Ability and Cooperation: Evidence from the Public Goods Experiments

Su Zhang (), Wei Gao and Binbin Fan
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Su Zhang: School of Economics, Central University of Finance and Economics
Wei Gao: School of Economics, Central University of Finance and Economics
Binbin Fan: School of Finance, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Annals of Economics and Finance, 2015, vol. 16, issue 1, 43-68

Abstract: The most important unanswered question in evolutionary biology, and more generally in the social sciences, is how cooperative behavior evolved. What it takes to bring out our cooperative spirit is a scientific puzzle that is driv- ing basic scientific research and shaping the future of science. By using the public goods game model, we designed four types of experiments, namely, non-punishment (NP), free punishment (FP), cost punishment (CP), and ex- ternal punishment (EP) experiment, to test the hypothesis that people with higher cognitive abilities have internalized a higher tendency of cooperation. We found that people with higher cognitive abilities are more willing to sacri- fice private gain for the public good in FP, CP, and EP experiment; They also imposed more "pro-social punishment" (spending time and energy to punish unfair actions, even though there’s nothing to be gained by these actions for themselves), and less "antisocial punishment" (punishing the high contributors as much as they punished the low contributors).

Keywords: Cognitive ability; Pro-social punishment; Antisocial punishment; Cooperative gain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A10 C70 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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