Handshaking Promotes Cooperative Dealmaking

From a paper by Schroeder et al. The abstract: 

Humans use subtle sources of information—like nonverbal behavior—to determine whether to act cooperatively or antagonistically when they negotiate. Handshakes are particularly consequential nonverbal gestures in negotiations because people feel comfortable initiating negotiations with them and believe they signal cooperation (Study 1). We show that handshakes increase cooperative behaviors, affecting outcomes for integrative and distributive negotiations. In two studies with MBA students, pairs who shook hands before integrative negotiations obtained higher joint outcomes (Studies 2a and 2b). Pairs randomly assigned to shake hands were more likely to openly reveal their preferences on trade-off issues, which improved joint outcomes (Study 3). In a fourth study using a distributive negotiation, pairs of executives assigned to shake hands were less likely to lie about their preferences and crafted agreements that split the bargaining zone more equally. Together, these studies show that handshaking promotes the adoption of cooperative strategies and influences negotiation outcomes.

From the conclusions:

. . . our work also contributes to research on rituals. Handshakes are just one of the many types of small acts that shape social interactions; indeed, many types of social interactions are guided by similar “everyday” rituals (e.g., Durkheim, 1912; Goffman, 1967). Mirroring our results for the positive effects of handshakes, successful social rituals increase positive emotions, and can induce prosociality in groups (Collins, 2004; Xygalatas et al., 2013). Whereas this previous research suggests that rituals can increase harmony in existing groups, our results suggest that such rituals can have positive effects even in more antagonistic settings: negotiations between parties in conflict. p. 24.

Cultural norms, cooperation, and communication: Taking experiments to the field in indigenous communities

Form a paper by Rucha Ghate, Suresh Ghate, & Elinor Ostrom.

Extensive experimental research has been devoted to the study of behaviour in laboratory settings related to public goods, common-pool resources, and other social dilemmas. When subjects are anonymous and not allowed to communicate, they tend not to cooperate. To the surprise of game theorists, however, simply allowing subjects to communicate in a laboratory setting enables them to achieve far more cooperative outcomes. This finding has now been replicated in many laboratory experiments in multiple countries and in some initial field experiments. Carefully conducted laboratory experiments do have strong internal validity. External validity, however, requires further research beyond the initial field experiments that have already been conducted. In this paper, we report on a series of common-pool resource field experiments conducted in eight indigenous communities in India that have very long traditions of shared norms and mutual trust. Two experimental designs were used in all eight villages: a “no-communication” game that was repeated in ten rounds where no one was allowed verbal or written communication and a “communication game” in which the same five participants were allowed to communicate with each other at the beginning of each round before making their decisions. The findings from these field experiments are substantially different from the findings of similar experiments conducted in experimental laboratories. Subjects tended to cooperate in the first design even in the absence of communication. The shared norms in these indigenous communities are so deeply embedded that communication is not needed to adopt cooperative decisions. Communication does, however, tend to homogenize group and individual outcomes so that communities that are overly cooperative tend to reduce cooperation slightly and those with small deviations in the other direction tend to move toward the optimal solution.

Cooperation in criminal organizations: Kinship and violence as credible commitments

The paper argues that kinship ties and sharing information on violent acts can be interpreted as forms of ‘hostage-taking’ likely to increase cooperation among co-offenders. The paper tests this hypothesis among members of two criminal groups, a Camorra clan based just outside Naples, and a Russian Mafia group that moved to Rome in the mid-1990s. The data consist of the transcripts of phone intercepts conducted on both groups by the Italian police over several months. After turning the data into a series of network matrices, we use Multivariate Quadratic Assignment Procedure to test the hypothesis. We conclude that the likelihood of cooperation is higher among members who have shared information about violent acts. Violence has a stronger effect than kinship in predicting tie formation and thus cooperation. When non-kinship-based mechanisms fostering cooperation exist, criminal groups are likely to resort to them.

The authors give a good explanation of different methods used to promote cooperation among co-ofenders. The paper is by Paolo Campana & Federico Varese. I found a pdf via google but was unable to link to it here. The paper might be relevant for the discussions on high violence in some LA countries. 

Who Makes a Good Leader?

A new paper by Gächter et al., in the new number of Economic Inquiry (October 2012). A draft is here.  

We examine the characteristics of effective leaders in a simple leader-follower voluntary contributions game. We focus on two factors: the individual's cooperativeness and the individual's beliefs about the cooperativeness of others. We find that groups perform best when led by those who are cooperatively inclined. Partly, this reflects a false consensus effect: cooperative leaders are more optimistic than noncooperators about the cooperativeness of followers. However, cooperative leaders contribute more than noncooperative leaders even after controlling for optimism. We conclude that differing leader contributions by differing types of leader in large part reflects social motivations.

Cooperation when stakes are large

We examine cooperative behavior when large sums of money are at stake, using data from the TV game show “Golden Balls”. At the end of each episode, contestants play a variant on the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma for large and widely ranging stakes averaging over $20,000. Cooperation is surprisingly high for amounts that would normally be considered consequential but look tiny in their current context, what we call a “big peanuts” phenomenon. Utilizing the prior interaction among contestants, we find evidence that people have reciprocal preferences. Surprisingly, there is little support for conditional cooperation in our sample. That is, players do not seem to be more likely to cooperate if their opponent might be expected to cooperate. Further, we replicate earlier findings that males are less cooperative than females, but this gender effect reverses for older contestants because men become increasingly cooperative as their age increases.

That is the abstract of the new paper "Split or Steal? Cooperative Behavior When the Stakes Are Large" by van den Assem, van Dolder, and Thaler (January 2012).

The authors explain:

In the current paper, we study cooperative behavior using another source of data, namely the behavior of contestants on the British TV game show “Golden Balls”. Although the game show setting is an unusual environment, it has the benefit of employing large and varying stakes. Furthermore, game shows are markedly different from laboratory experiments in terms of participant selection, scrutiny, and familiarity of participants with the decision task. Combined with the strict and well- defined rules, game shows can therefore provide unique opportunities to investigate the robustness of existing laboratory findings . . . .  (p. 3).

In the final stage of “Golden Balls”, contestants make a choice on whether or not to cooperate in a variant of the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma. In particular, the two final contestants independently have to decide whether they want to “split” or “steal” the jackpot. If both contestants choose “split”, they share the jackpot equally. If one chooses “split” and the other chooses “steal”, the one who steals takes the jackpot and the other gets nothing. If they both “steal”, both go home empty-handed. On average, the jackpot is over $20,000. The variation is large: from a few dollars to about $175,000 (p. 3).

A graph from the paper (p. 16):