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Cognitive Cooperation: When the Going Gets Tough, Think as a Group

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Teamwork

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Abstract

Cooperation is found throughout the animal kingdom and is especially common in our own species. For cooperation to evolve, there must first be a task that requires the coordinated action of more than one individual. Then it must be possible to solve the problems of cheating that often accompany coordinated action. Sometimes there is little incentive to cheat because cooperation produces large benefits for everyone at trivial individual cost. At other times cooperation is more costly and evolves only in groups where genetic relatedness is high or social control mechanisms are in place. Social insect colonies are one pinnacle of cooperation in the animal kingdom. Human social groups are another pinnacle, although the evolutionary pathways were not necessarily the same in the two cases (Sober and Wilson, 1998).

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Authors
  1. David Sloan Wilson
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  2. John J. Timmel
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  3. Ralph R. Miller
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford University, UK

    Natalie Gold (doctorate in economics) (doctorate in economics)

Copyright information

© 2005 David Sloan Wilson, John J. Timmel and Ralph R. Miller

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Wilson, D.S., Timmel, J.J., Miller, R.R. (2005). Cognitive Cooperation: When the Going Gets Tough, Think as a Group. In: Gold, N. (eds) Teamwork. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523203_3

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