2. Cooperation and Competition
Cooperation: Behavior in which groups work together to attain shared goals. In cooperation, the individual
sees that the personal rewards may be enhanced if the other person also benefits from the interaction
Competition: To strive against another such as: advantage or victory. In competition, rewards must often
come at the expense of others
But how this process within groups takes on……
Games
Social psychologists tend to study cooperation and competition through the analysis of games
Games assume that individuals are rational actors who are motivated to maximize their benefits
✓Games are divided into two–persons or more than two persons
✓This assumes that people are selfish or cooperative for a specific outcome
3. Types of Games
1. Games between two people(Direct competition) and more than two people: When the game is between two
persons, it deals directly with competition and the winning strategy, and the game between more than two
persons is best suited for coalition formation, cliques, and teams
2. Perfect and Imperfect Information: In games of perfect information, the moves are completely visible to every
player. On the other hand, games of imperfect information depend heavily on certain information being
concealed from other players
3. Zero-sum games(Perfect competition) and Non-zero sum games: In zero-sum games, one person’s winnings or
rewards must be subtracted from that of other players collectively. Such a game is also a game of the perfect
competition
Whereas non-zero-sum games describe the situation in which the interacting parties aggregate the
gains/losses. That is, the gains are either less than or more than zero. The non-zero-sum game is the win-win
situation
4. Social Dilemma
Social dilemmas are situations in which collective interests are at odds with personal interests
Broadly defined, social dilemmas involve a conflict between immediate self-interest and longer-term collective
interests. These are challenging situations because acting in one’s immediate self-interest is tempting to
everyone involved, even though everybody benefits from acting in the longer-term collective interest
The social dilemma has historically revolved around the metaphorical story of the Prisoner's Dilemma
The Prisoner's Dilemma constitutes a problem in game theory. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and
Melvin Dresher, working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs
and gave it the "Prisoner's Dilemma" name (Poundstone, 1992)
Basically, a social dilemma is a situation in which each person can increase his or her individual gains by acting in
one way, but if all (or most) persons do the same thing, the outcomes experienced by all are reduced
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5. The metaphorical explanation of the Prisoner's Dilemma explains
Social Dilemma as:
When there are two persons, each can choose either to cooperate or compete. If both
cooperate, then they both experience larger gains. If both compete, each person experiences
much smaller gains or losses. The most interesting pattern occurs when one chooses to
compete while the other chooses to cooperate. In this case, the first person (who chooses to
compete) experiences much larger gains than the second one(one who chooses to
cooperate). This situation is called the Prisoner’s Dilemma. As it reflects a dilemma faced by
two suspects who have been caught by police
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6. In its "classical" form, the prisoner's dilemma is presented as follows:
Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction and, having
separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal.
✓ If one testifies (defects- to do what is best for oneself) for the prosecution against the other and the other
remains silent, the betrayer goes free, and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence
✓ If both remain silent(if both defect), both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge
✓ If both confess(if both cooperate), they will both be convicted and receive a five-year sentence
✓ If one confesses and the other does not, the police have enough evidence to convict both, but the person who
confesses will receive a lighter sentence because of the help he or she has given to the police
Therefore, this situation captures the essence of many social dilemmas as people experience pressure to
cooperate or compete
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7. Prisoner ‘B’
(Confess-
Cooperates)
(Does not confess)
Prisoner ‘B’
(Defects)
(Defects-Remain
silent)
Prisoner ‘A’
(Confess-
Cooperates)
(Remains silent)
Each serves 5 year
sentence
Prisoner A: 10
years
Prisoner B: Goes
Free
Prisoner ‘A’
(Defects)
(Defects-Remain
silent)
(Confess)
‘A’ will receive a
lighter sentence
because of the
help ‘A’ has given
to police
Each serves 6
month sentence
(when both
remain silent)
The result of such a situation is
dealt with mixed-motives:
1. Cooperate: to avoid the
negative outcomes
2. Defect: to do what is best for
oneself
The Classical Prisoner's Dilemma
(Albert W. Tucker)
8. Factors Influencing Cooperation
1. Reciprocity: Reciprocity is a social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action and rewarding
kind actions. Reciprocity is probably the most significant factor in influencing cooperation. That is, when others cooperate
with us and push their selfish interests aside, we usually respond in the same kind
The reciprocity norm operates on a simple principle: People tend to feel obligated to return favors after
people do favors for them
➢ Reciprocal Altruism: This suggests that sharing resources such as food increases the chances of survival and thus the
likelihood that they will pass their genes on to the next generation. Further, they tend to share in such a way that the
benefits are relatively great for the recipients of such cooperation, while the cost is relatively minimal for the provider.
For example, if one family has more food than he and his family can eat while the other is starving, the cost to the first
is minimal, and the gains to the second are great
When the situation is reversed, cooperation again will benefit both parties and increase their chances of
survival. In contrast, organisms that act in a purely selfish manner do not gain many benefits
1. Personal Orientation: Researches indicate three distinct orientations toward situations involving cooperation:
➢ Cooperative Orientation: in which individuals prefer to maximize joint outcomes received by all the persons involved
➢ Individualistic Orientation: in which they focus primarily on maximizing their own outcomes
➢ Competitive Orientation: in which people focus primarily on defeating others, that is, obtaining better outcomes
than other persons do
9. 3. Communication: Common sense suggests that if individuals discuss the situation with others, they may soon conclude
for the best option for everyone is to cooperate. But in many situations, group members do not induce cooperation, even
communicating with others. On the contrary, group members sometimes use communication primarily to threaten one
another, with the result that cooperation does not occur
Communication can lead to cooperation, provided certain conditions are met, that is, members follow norms
that induce commitment and cooperation
4. Discontinuity Effect: The discontinuity effect is known as the markedly greater competitiveness displayed between
different, interacting groups relative to the competitiveness displayed when individuals interact with other individuals.
Given that group competition over scarce resources is believed to lead to group-level conflict, it has been asserted that
the link between competition and conflict is also considerably more powerful between groups than between individuals.
While individuals within a group may prefer to be cooperative, once they join together to make a collective unit,
individual orientations favoring cooperation tend to be overshadowed by competitive orientations of the group
The discontinuity effect is consistent, which suggests that it emerges due to a number of causes, which may
ultimately combine to intensify inter-group conflict. These causes are greed, anonymity, fear, in-group favoritism, and
diffusion of responsibility
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10. Groups too can choose to cooperate or compete with each other. Business,for instance, usually compete
for customers and markets, but sometimes they form a “consortium,” an association whose members
cooperate with one another. For example, hospitals cooperate while creating a consortium so that one
specializes in heart surgery, another in reconstructive surgery, and so on. The reason for cooperation is
clear. The facilities for each of these specialties are so expensive it makes more sense for the hospitals to
divide rather than try to compete by offering services
With increased interaction between groups, they would become less competitive and influence
cooperation. They tend to form a consortium (an association whose members cooperate with one
another) and become more identifiable
Such inter-group cooperation may be difficult to achieve. And this tendency is known as the
discontinuity effect, that is, “the greater tendency of groups than individuals to compete in a mixed-motive
situation”
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