The Role of Authority and Communication in Cooperation

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will use the tools of game theory to provide an improved understanding of cooperation in large groups. These tools have been used by others to understand cooperation in small groups. However, the insights from this work do not provide much insight into what happens in larger groups. The project has two parts. The first part addresses authority - what it is, how a person might acquire it, maintain it and use it. The aim is to provide an understanding of authority that centers on an individual's ability to coordinate other players' actions. A good model of authority should have several features. First, an individual has authority when a group of people coordinate their behavior in response to announcements by that individual. Second, there is a tension between the incentives of the individual with authority to maintain that authority and to take advantage of his authority. Third, too much flexibility or unpredictability can destroy authority. Fourth, authority need not necessarily come from some special ability or talent. Fifth, authority does not arise from people simply coordinating on a choice identified by the "authority" figure. The principal investigators will build models with these features and use them to analyze authority. The second part of the project looks at the role of communication between the members of large groups. Previous work on how groups cooperate over time has included punishment as a central ingredient. The idea is that people cooperate because they know that they will be punished by the group for non-cooperation. However, in a large group, it is not likely that all group members will immediately know that someone else has chosen non-cooperation. Punishment is only possible if members of the group communicate. However, the mere possibility of communication won't ensure cooperation; people have to have an incentive to tell the truth about others for cooperation to be enforced. This part of the project will again use game theory to analyze when and how large groups can use communication to encourage cooperation. This research will provide a better understanding of how cooperation does and does not work in large social groups. A central question in economics, and other social sciences, is why some countries or groups do less well than others. The variation in performance does not appear to be adequately explained by differences in available resources, suggesting that differences in social organization are likely to be important. The focus is on particular aspects of social organization, authority and communication, as important determinants of the level of cooperation possible within a society. The work will provide a foundation for more applied work aimed at understanding differences among societies by providing models linking social structure to social performance.