Diversity as a source of division requires taking seriously cultural differences & investing in resources to help facilitate common language and common culture that reduce coordination and communication costs while keeping diversity

Muthukrishna, M., Sep 2021. The Ties that Bind Us. LSE Public Policy Review, 2(1), p.3. http://doi.org/10.31389/lseppr.35

Abstract: This paper reviews the evolutionary literature on cooperation and the mechanisms proposed to explain the differences we see in the scale, breadth, and intensity of cooperation across societies, over history, and among behavioural domains. The most well-studied mechanisms that help societies sustain cooperation include kinship, reciprocity, reputation, signalling, norms, informal and formal institutions, and the competition between stable equilibria sustained by these mechanisms. I apply each of these mechanisms to the problem of reciprocity across the lifecycle. I then discuss how these same ties also tear us apart and what policies might help tie us back together.

JEL Codes: A12, A13, C71, J14, J18, Z1

Keywords: altruism, cooperation, evolution, norms, institutions

4. Conclusion: Tying Us Back Together

Returning to the topic at hand, reciprocity across the lifecycle may ultimately depend on levels of production and the division of consumption between workers and pensioners, as Nick Barr explains in his paper in this issue. But both production and attitudes towards this decision are shaped by the ties that bind us, the ties that tear us apart, and the competition between cultural-groups of different norms and institutions. Policy decisions can shape these norms, and there are guiding lessons from this literature.

4.1. Increasing the sense of “we”

The sense of “we” becomes weaker when society is fractured along ethnic, religious, and cultural lines. Immigration brings diversity that is a fuel for both innovation and economic growth, but it can also be a source of division and cooperation at subnational scales. Resolving this paradox of diversity [41] requires taking seriously cultural differences, measuring them [4], sustainably managing migration (or investing in infrastructure to reduce competition over resources), and investing in resources to help facilitate common language and common culture that reduce coordination and communication costs while retaining cultural diversity. There are difficult practical and ethical challenges in attempting to resolve the trade-offs diversity poses, but new innovations in simply measuring diversity along different dimensions is a first step toward tackling these challenges.

4.2. Moving from burden to benefit

Reinstating the traditional role of the retired as carers, if not also as sources of information, may also offer a model to move public perception from burden to benefit. Intergenerational care home-cum-childcare centers, such as South West London’s Nightingale House, offer a potential model [42] with reported benefits for both children and the elderly.

4.3. Reducing perceptions of zero-sum

Perceptions of zero-sumness can create a reality through psychological traps. If we assume that the world is more zero-sum, or that others are not trustworthy, it can be difficult to reach that next cooperative threshold or to take advantages of the present positive-sum opportunities. This in turn can lead to anti-social competitive behaviour. As research on the Joy of Destruction (JoD) game shows, people are more likely to engage in destructive competition versus productive competition [37, 38, 43, 44, 45]. In this game, people are presented with an opportunity to harm another player at some cost to themselves with no other interaction between the two parties. For example, taking £40 away from another player at a cost of £20 to themselves. Participants living in Namibia have shown a higher willingness to voluntarily harm themselves to cause greater harm to another than those living in Ukraine, while within Namibia, those in low rainfall regions compared to high rainfall regions show the same tendency to embrace harm, provided more harm is done to another. It has been argued that this is a function of zero-sum contexts where relative status can be maintained more easily by harming others than by working hard to access a scarce resource. Cultural evolution and behavioural science offer tools for shaping public perception under times of resource stress and slowed growth [8].