The study „Homo cooperans: Understanding the nature of human cooperation" arrives at a clear result: 69 percent of study participants choose to cooperate. At the same time, the study shows that people systematically underestimate the willingness of others to cooperate. The data are based on behavioral cooperation experiments with more than 100,000 people from 125 representative country samples, which together represent 92 percent of the world's adult population. The study is the first worldwide to investigate human cooperation on a globally representative basis. It provides new answers to one of the most important questions in the social and behavioral sciences: How willing are humans to cooperate with strangers, and which individual factors shapte this behavior.
Cooperation is a fundamental prerequisite for societal well-being. Whether functioning institutions or the provision of public goods such as clean air, public safety, or a stable climate — many of the greatest challenges of our time can only be addressed if people are willing to contribute to the common good beyond their own self-interest. It is therefore crucial to understand why people are willing to cooperate. The individual factors that determine the willingness to cooperate have "so far not been sufficiently researched," explains Prof. Dr. Armin Falk, Professor of Economics at the University of Bonn.
At the center of the study is a decision experiment conducted in the same way worldwide. Each participating person was assigned to an unknown person from their own country and had to choose between two options: the option "Do not cooperate" yielded a secure payoff of 100 US dollars, whereas the option "Cooperate" yielded only 70 US dollars. However, if both people – independently of each other and without joint consultation – chose the cooperation option, an additional donation of 400 US dollars was triggered to combat global warming. This research design confronts participants with a social dilemma: it requires them to decide between a higher private payoff on the one hand and a less profitable but socially more valuable decision on the other. The design makes it possible to measure willingness to cooperate under comparable conditions across countries. The study reports four main findings.
First, cooperation is widespread. A clear majority of people around the world are willing to forgo money for themselves in favor of a common good — the fight against climate change. Globally, 69 percent of participants choose to cooperate.
Second, the observed willingness to cooperate can be explained by individual factors. To this end, the authors test a behavioral-economic model that takes into account the role of cooperation expectations, social norms, and preferences. Expectations about how cooperative other people are turn out to be particularly important. Those who believe that others are willing to cooperate are themselves much more likely to cooperate. In addition, social norms and preferences play an important role. People who are more altruistic, more patient, and more willing to take risks cooperate more often. The research team also examines socioeconomic factors. On global average, they find no difference between men and women and no age effect. However, they observe that higher educational attainment has a positive effect on the cooperation decision.
Third, the study highlights the central importance of cultural factors in explaining cooperation. Since the authors can draw on data from 125 countries, cultural influences on cooperative behavior can be studied at the global level for the first time. The results show that the behavioral model provides a good explanation for the global average, but that the strength of individual factors varies substantially across cultures. For example, while the influence of cooperation expectations on one's own decision to cooperate is clearly visible on global average, the size of this effect differs considerably across countries. The effect of cooperation expectations on cooperation is very large in Finland, for instance, but much smaller in Egypt. Further analyses illustrate that cultural differences in the explanation of cooperative behavior are deeply rooted in historical contexts. The study thus shows that cooperation is not merely an individual trait, but is also shaped by culture.
Fourth, the study illustrates that people systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to cooperate. While actual global willingness to cooperate is 69 percent, respondents expect an average cooperation rate of only 47 percent. This pessimistic misperception is universal and is found in 124 out of 125 countries. In Germany, it is particularly pronounced. While 86.0 percent of participants in Germany cooperate, they expect a cooperation rate among their fellow citizens of only 47.6 percent — an underestimation of almost 40 percentage points. Since cooperation expectations are central to willingness to cooperate, pessimistic misperceptions can have negative consequences for the level of cooperation. However, the study also shows that misperceptions can be corrected: a simple information experiment conducted as part of the survey reduced pessimism and increased willingness to cooperate. To this end, a randomly selected group of respondents was informed that the majority of the world's population regards climate change as a serious problem. This information increased cooperation expectations and led to an increase in cooperation.
In summary, the foundations of human cooperation are universal, but their concrete expression is strongly shaped by cultural factors. And: as a species, we are more cooperative than we ourselves believe. This insight is not only scientifically relevant, but also socially significant — because it shows that the preconditions for joint action, from climate protection to the provision of public goods, are in many areas better than is often assumed.
Publication: Armin Falk, Teodora Boneva, Peter Andre, Felix Chopra,
„Homo cooperans: Understanding the nature of human cooperation",
DOI: science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec9483
Funding: The study was funded by the Foundation for Global Sustainability (formerly Deutsche Post Foundation) and supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Excellence Strategy.
Authors' contributions: All of the researchers involved contributed equally to the preparation of the article and all aspects of the study itself, including designing the study, analyzing the data and writing the article.
The ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence: The two authors Armin Falk and Teodora Boneva are members of the ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence. Run jointly by the Universities of Bonn and Cologne, it is concerned with societal and technological challenges, including global financial crises, increasing inequality, political polarization, digitalization and climate change.
Armin Falk is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area "Individuals and Societies" at the University of Bonn.
