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).