Cooperation: Why do humans help each other?

In a unique study aimed at learning how to maximize human cooperation, researchers at Carlos III University of Madrid discovered the following:

·         An estimated 5% of people always try to help their neighbors;

·         An estimated 35% never do; and

·         The remaining 60% cooperate depending on their mood or according to how their neighbor has behaved previously. 

In a posting at psypost.org earlier this year, study author Professor Jose A. Cuesta was quoted as saying: “We have proved that in general, decisions regarding cooperation do not reflect so much economic incentives as much as they do the fact that the individuals with whom they interact cooperate or not.”  The authors point out that the study’s findings have implications across all fields, and can be used to optimize collaboration and innovation networks, where large groups of people or companies participate in a common task.  “In these cases,” explained Angel Sanchez, a co-author also quoted in the psypost.org story: “We must foment a generally cooperative atmosphere for the participants, which then has implications for the size of work groups and the need for timely incentives in order to avoid falling into a non-cooperative mind set.”

The psypost.org story explained these details of the experiment: The question at hand was determining if, in a dilemma where someone would have to choose between cooperating or not with other people who were connected through a network, a situation could be achieved in which all or most of the people collaborated. The theories and the computer simulations did not offer a univocal response and in many cases made contradictory predictions; because of this these scientists decided to carry out an experiment with real individuals. For this purpose, the researchers asked for volunteers among the student body at the UC3M Leganés campus and had them then interact through a computer program so that they could see the people with whom they had to cooperate (while keeping their anonymity at all times).

The psypost.org story added the following: In the instructions given to 169 participants in this experiment, words such as cooperate, betray, or let down were not employed in order to avoid inducing certain behavior – instead, choices were indicated by colors. During each round, a player obtained a certain benefit for their choice according to what their neighbors had chosen and he/she was informed what the others had done or won. The interaction was repeated a certain number of rounds and in two different situations; one in which the neighbors were always the same and another in which they changed after each round. “In this way,” the researchers pointed out, “we were able to compare the result when there was an established contact network with what happens when there is not and the individuals interact with different groups.”

The study was performed by Professor Cuesta, Full Professor Angel Sanchez (both with the Mathematics Department at UC3M), a team of researchers from the National University of Distance Learning in Spain and the Universidad Catolica del Norte in Antogasgasta, Chile.  The study was published earlier this year in journal PLoS ONE. 

Is there a link between credit scores and personality?

Yes there is, but not what you might think. 

Given that credit scores play such a significant role in U.S. hiring – a 2010 poll found that 60% of U.S. employers conduct some form of credit check on prospective employees - researchers from LSU, Texas Tech University and Northern Illinois University set out to examine the link between credit scores and personality, job performance and harmful workplace behaviors (e.g., cheating, stealing). Their findings:

·         Personality: interestingly, agreeableness is negatively related to a person’s credit score.  Explained lead researcher Jeremy Bernerth (as quoted in an LSU web site report): “With regards to personality and credit – it makes sense that conscientiousness is related to good credit, but what was really interesting was that agreeableness was negatively related to your credit score. . . .  That suggests easy-going individuals actually have worse credit scores than disagreeable and rude individuals.  This suggests that agreeable individuals might get themselves in trouble by co-signing loans for friends or family or taking out additional credit cards at the suggestion of store clerks.”

·         Harmful workplace behavior: the LSU report said that “contrary to what many employers consider common knowledge and practice, the researchers found no correlation between poor credit scores and bad behavior on the job.” Said Bernerth, in the LSU report: “It was telling that poor credit scores were not correlated to theft and other deviant types of work behaviors . . . .Most companies attempt to justify the use of credit scores because they think such employees will end up stealing, but our research suggests that might not be the case.”

·         Job performance: Not surprisingly, Bernerth and fellow researchers found a positive link between high credit scores and what he terms “task performance” and “citizenship behavior,” according to a Time magazine article. Bernerth’s team found that people with higher credit scores were better both at task performance as well as citizenship behavior. “It’s really about consistency,” said Bernerth, quoted in Time. “We’re all driven towards consistency. If we’re being reliable and dependable in terms of our financial behavior, there’s a consistency in us that drives us towards those sorts of behaviors on the job.”

Bernerth also pointed out, as quoted in Time:

·         Just 35% of your credit score - “If you look at what actually goes into a credit score, only 35 percent of it is your repayment history,” said Bernerth, other factors include unemployment or other hardships (e.g., medical). The other 65% has to do with length of credit history and type of debt, factors that Bernerth told Time aren’t necessarily predictive of a job seeker’s performance. Bernerth told Time: “[Employers] are talking about it as if a credit report or a credit score is a proxy of personality. . . . There’s some truth to that but there’s a lot more involved. There’s so much more in there I don’t know that that’s an accurate comparison.”

Learning new faces: at what age does this ability peak?

Does it peak at age 11?   65?   4?   19?   31? 

Researchers at Harvard and Dartmouth, in a study published earlier this year, found that the mental ability to recognize new faces peaks at age 31 – far later than many would suspect, according to the study’s authors.  The study set out to disprove a common notion that cognitive abilities peak in the early twenties. 
Gathering data from over 60,000 participants, the study traced the ability to learn new faces from pre-adolescence through middle age and, in three separate experiments, found that face-learning ability improves until just after age 30, even though other related cognitive abilities (name recognition and inverted face recognition, which both peaked in the early 20s), peaked earlier. 

The study’s authors said that their data “provide the first behavioral evidence for late maturation of face processing and the dissociation of face recognition from other abilities over time”, adding that this “demonstrates that studies on adult age development can provide insight into the organization and development of cognitive systems.”  

The study was co-authored by Laura T. Germinea (Harvard), Bradley Duchaineb (Dartmouth) and Ken Nakayamaa (Harvard).

Kissing: nature or nurture?

Why do humans kiss?  Is it a learned behavior or does it serve a primary function in evolution of the human species?  In a 2011 issue of Discover Magazine, writer Sheril Kirshenbaum shared “20 things you didn’t know about kissing.”  Some highlights from Kirshenbaum’s findings:

•  Kissing is not universal, points out Kirshenbaum, “leading some experts, like anthropologist Vaughn Bryant of Texas A&M to think that it might actually be a learned behavior.”

•  Citing the work of evolutionary biologist Claus Wedekind (Switzerland’s University of Lausanne), Kirshenbaum explains that “being close enough to kiss helps our noses assess compatibility.”  Wedekind’s study, said Kirshenbaum, “reported that women prefer the scents of men whose immunity-coding genes are different from their own.  Mixing genes that way may produce offspring with a stronger immune system.”

•  A vote for nature?  Said Kirshenbaum: “. . . two-thirds of all people turn their head to the right when kissing, according to psychologist Onur Gntrkn of Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany.  This behavior may mirror the head-turning preference observed in babies and even in fetuses.”

•  Women vs. men?  A study cited by Kirshenbaum found that “when deciding whether to kiss someone, women pay much closer attention than men do to the breath and teeth of their partner.” The work cited was performed by evolutionary psychology Gordon Gallup (State University of New York, Albany).

How many close friends do you have?

In an era of exploding social networks, researchers at Cornell University were somewhat surprised to learn that Americans report fewer close friends than they did a generation ago.  How many?  On average, the researchers report, Americans now say that they have 2.03 friends in their "discussion network." In a similar study in 1985, the average was closer to 3.  

In all, 2,000 adults were asked to name the people with whom they had “discussed important matters” in the past six months -- 29% named more than two people, 18% listed two, 48% listed only one person and 4% said they had not shared important information with anyone.  Interestingly, women and those with a higher level of education named the fewest friends.

Why would our friend pool diminish, in the face of ever expanding social networks?  Researchers said that they would leave it to others to answer this important question, but study author and sociology professor Matthew Brashears speculated that the reason our discussion network has diminished may simply have to do with how we currently define what a close friend is.  Said Brashears, quoted in The Cornell Sun: “We were skeptical of the dramatic change,” but he did acknowledge that “increased connectivity has not translated into an increase in the number of close confidantes.” In addition to these findings, Brashears found that American social networks are “not necessarily increasing in diversity, even though Americans now interact with people abroad via technology,” according to the Sun.

In a related study, Prof. Keith Hampton from the University of Pennsylvania obtained similar results, in his work with the Pew Research Center. Said the Sun, summarizing Hampton's findings: “He predicted that increasing economic prosperity may cause declines in close social ties. . . . In his research, Hampton studied social networks in other countries and found that development and implementation of social institutions diminish the dependency on a social network.”

Can naps improve your emotional state?

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley say yes – finding that taking an afternoon nap improves emotional reactions.  In their report, the researchers point out that this finding adds to a broad body of research that shows that sleep improves cognitive function.  But this particular study reaches into the emotional sphere as well.  Said the researchers:  “ . . . these results suggest that the evaluation of specific human emotions is not static across a daytime waking interval, showing a progressive reactivity toward threat-related negative expressions.  However, an episode of sleep can reverse this predisposition. . . . ”  From a physiological point of view, this may be because the prefrontal cortex becomes fatigued through the day and therefore less able to dampen down emotional reactivity in the sub-cortex.  The researchers add: “These findings support the view that sleep, and specifically REM neurophysiology, may represent an important factor governing the optimal homeostasis of emotional brain regulation.”


Addressing the “intimate relationship” between sleep and emotion, the researchers conclude: “A growing collection of experimental findings has continued to substantiate a role for sleep in emotion processing.”   So the next time you’re feeling a bit down, or riled up, take a nap.  We’re sure the boss will approve.


The research was conducted by Ninad Gujar, Steven Andrew McDonald, Masaki Nishida1 and Matthew P. Walker, all of whom are affiliated with Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Psychology.

Lasting love – what’s the magic ingredient?

What makes marriages last?  Apparently, it’s not how MUCH you love each other, it’s how closely your commitment level matches up.  Researchers from the University of Minnesota and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report that marital instability results when you match a “strong link” with a “weak link”.  Explained the editors at Science Daily, who analyzed the study: “Two strong links will be benevolent and tolerant when the going gets rough. Two weak links may be lax about working things out, but their expectations are equally low – so there’s less friction. But when a weak link and a strong link pair up, the one with less investment has more influence – and stability is the loser.”

Six researchers – M. Minda Oriña of St. Olaf College; W. Andrew Collins, Jeffry A. Simpson, Jessica E. Salvatore, and John S. Kim of the University of Minnesota and Katherine C. Haydon of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -- used the rich mine of data in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA), coupled with a lab procedure, to look for the answers.

Author Orina explained: “The study contributes to our understanding of how we learn to love well. When you’re a baby or a teenager, “you are learning to manage your own needs and those of the people you care about,” Oriña says. “You learn: Can I come forward with a problem? What can I expect of the other person? And how can I do this in a way that everyone wins?”

Do you rely more on advice or experience?

It depends, say researchers, on your genetic makeup.  A quick example: a good friend recommends that you buy some technology stocks, or start shopping at a popular local retailer.  But you’ve had negative experiences with both. Which way do you go?  Do you rely on the advice, or your personal experience?

Apparently, it depends, in part, on your biological makeup, according to a new study out of Brown University.  The researchers, according to David Orenstein, Life Science professor at Brown, “have found that specific genetic variations can predict how persistently people will believe advice they are given, even when it is contradicted by experience.”   The study, reported last month in the Journal of Neuroscience, explored how two brain regions process incoming data.  As Orenstein explains it: “The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the executive area of the brain, considers and stores income instructions such as the advice of other people (e.g., ‘Don’t sell those stocks.’) The striatum, buried deeper in the brain, is where people process experience to learn what to do (e.g., ‘Those stocks often go up after I sell them.’)

Orenstein, citing work by Michael Frank, Brown’s assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, explained: “It turns out that in a learning task, people are guided more by advice at the start. Their genes determine how long it takes before they let the lessons of experience prevail.” Added Orenstein: “Like a ‘yes man’ who is flexible to a fault, the striatum would give more weight to experiences that reinforced the PFC’s belief, and less weight to experiences that contradicted it. Researchers call this confirmation bias, which is ubiquitous across many domains, such as astrology, politics, and even science.”

Frank adds: “It’s funny because we are telling a story about how these genes lead to maladaptive performance, but that’s actually reflective of a system that evolved to be that way for an adaptive reason. . . . This phenomenon of confirmation bias might actually just be a byproduct of a system that tries to be more efficient with the learning process.”