Strategic Investment In Reputation

Strategic Investment in Reputation

Cooperation is a key element in any living species, and, especially, in human being. This as a social being needs interaction with others to survive, and, in this sense, the action of cooperating is included. But what is cooperating? According to the Royal Spanish Academy, this term consists of working together with another or others for the achievement of a common purpose.

In terms of the human species, cooperation can occur in different forms and its evolution has been marked by different aspects. One of them is indirect reciprocity (Alexander, 1987, cited in Milinski, M., Semmann, d., Krambeck, h.J., 2002), which consists of giving help and receiving it even if it is not for the same person to whom you gave it. In fact, some investigations show that, those who were servicals in the past are more likely to receive help through others thanks to indirect reciprocity. (Wedekind and Milinski 2000; Bolton et al. 2001; Milinski et al. 2001; Seinen and Schram 2001; Wedekind and Braithwaite 2002, cited in Milinski et al. 2002.)

In the face of cooperative behavior, there are two individual attributes that determine that behavior be carried out or not. First, we find trust, that is, the set of expectations that an individual has about the behavior of others. And, secondly, the reputation, that is, the identities that individuals believe that they reflect their intentions and norms (Ostrom 2003, cited in Milinski et al. 2002.)

Well, linking with the concept of cooperation we are talking about, we find to offer or not help the reputation, by the simple fact that if you help a social image is projected on yourself, and, on the contrary, if not Cooperas, a negative social image is projected.

In addition, the first attribute, trust, also plays an important role in this relationship, since in general, a person will cooperate if he has enough confidence that in the future his reputation will be benefited from that help he offered, as well as, it will stop cooperating if the confidence that in the future its reputation will not be benefited in the future. Therefore, it is about making a strategic investment of the reputation, Cooperras (invest) if this attribute will benefit.

Under the context of cooperation, we find the situation of "public goods". "Public goods" are typical social dilemmas in which initial cooperation decreases after several rounds. This phenomenon has been studied through the classic game of public goods, in which its participants have the possibility of contributing an amount of money, which can be chosen by the same participant, in public public funds. After the contributions of the participants, the total money of the common public fund is distributed equally, regardless of the contributions of these. Now, if one or more players do not contribute anything, finally that common public fund stops working. We therefore observe a social dilemma between the group and the individual himself, where, if the individual does not contribute to the common funds to take advantage and earn more money than the rest of the players, he finally ends up damaging the group.

To avoid these social conflicts, different mechanisms have been proposed such as: controlling citizens’ access to public goods, punishing the group of citizens who do not cooperate, offer the opportunity to voluntarily participate in public goods and participation in situations of indirect reciprocity.

To study how indirect reciprocity influences the cooperative social dilemma, Milinski et al, carried out a first study in which a set of volunteers participated in public goods games (contributing with a certain amount to a common public fund) alternated with indirect reciprocity games (help and be helped). They found that those people who did not contribute to the game of public goods, were not supported by the indirect reciprocity game by the rest of the participants, and vice versa. In addition, they warned that in recent rounds public goods would be played. It was then that there was a greater decline in cooperation. That is, as the participants no longer put their reputation (indirect reciprocity game) stopped cooperating. These facts demonstrate the phenomenon of strategic investment in reputation.

However, the authors of the experiment thought that perhaps these results were due to effects marked by an overload at the brain level, that is, playing in two situations would produce an overload in the brain, and therefore it would act automatically cooperating simply, as way to handle this overload. Therefore, by eliminating the interaction between the two games, the overload would be eliminated and that would allow the non -cooperative decisions to be carried out again.

So, do we cooperate more if we know that our reputation is at stake? For the authors of the experiment it was crucial to answer this question since if so, it would mean assuming that the human being in addition to helping their species, like the rest of animals, is a true strategist who seeks in the help of others a benefit Own, a good reputation.