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Payoff-based learning best explains the rate of decline in cooperation across 237 public-goods games

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  • Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew

    (HEC-University of Lausanne
    Biophore, University of Lausanne
    Calleva Research Centre for Evolution and Human Sciences, Magdalen College
    University of Oxford)

  • Stuart A. West

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

What motivates human behaviour in social dilemmas? The results of public goods games are commonly interpreted as showing that humans are altruistically motivated to benefit others. However, there is a competing ‘confused learners’ hypothesis: that individuals start the game either uncertain or mistaken (confused) and then learn from experience how to improve their payoff (payoff-based learning). Here we (1) show that these competing hypotheses can be differentiated by how they predict contributions should decline over time; and (2) use metadata from 237 published public goods games to test between these competing hypotheses. We found, as predicted by the confused learners hypothesis, that contributions declined faster when individuals had more influence over their own payoffs. This predicted relationship arises because more influence leads to a greater correlation between contributions and payoffs, facilitating learning. Our results suggest that humans, in general, are not altruistically motivated to benefit others but instead learn to help themselves.

Suggested Citation

  • Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew & Stuart A. West, 2021. "Payoff-based learning best explains the rate of decline in cooperation across 237 public-goods games," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(10), pages 1330-1338, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:5:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41562-021-01107-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01107-7
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    Cited by:

    1. Burton-Chellew, Maxwell & West, Stuart, 2022. "The black box as a control for payoff-based learning in economic games," SocArXiv 5k4ez, Center for Open Science.
    2. Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew & Stuart A. West, 2022. "The Black Box as a Control for Payoff-Based Learning in Economic Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Burton-Chellew, Maxwell, 2022. "The restart effect in social dilemmas shows humans are self-interested not altruistic," SocArXiv hgznu, Center for Open Science.
    4. Robin Watson & Thomas J. H. Morgan & Rachel L. Kendal & Julie Van de Vyver & Jeremy Kendal, 2021. "Social Learning Strategies and Cooperative Behaviour: Evidence of Payoff Bias, but Not Prestige or Conformity, in a Social Dilemma Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-26, November.
    5. Razen, Michael & Kupfer, Alexander, 2023. "The effect of tax transparency on consumer and firm behavior: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Di, Changyan & Zhou, Qingguo & Shen, Jun & Wang, Jinqiang & Zhou, Rui & Wang, Tianyi, 2023. "The coupling effect between the environment and strategies drives the emergence of group cooperation," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    7. Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew & Victoire D’Amico & Claire Guérin, 2022. "The Strategy Method Risks Conflating Confusion with a Social Preference for Conditional Cooperation in Public Goods Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-10, October.
    8. Burton-Chellew, Maxwell & D'Amico, Victoire & Guérin, Claire, 2021. "The strategy method conflates confusion with conditional cooperation in public goods games: evidence from large scale replications," SocArXiv 7d5yn, Center for Open Science.

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