Solidarity of good and justice keeps a society together

A team of U.S. researchers has found that solidarity of philanthropism and reciprocity is necessary to maintain cooperative societies.

According to researchers, solidarity of good and justice is not only a moral statement but has also shown its importance from an academic perspective.

Soka University researcher Isamu Okada and his collaborators Tatsuya Sasaki (University of Vienna) and Yutaka Nakai (Shibaura Institute of Technology) have found that the solidarity of philanthropism and reciprocity is necessary to maintain cooperative societies.

Most theoretical studies on reciprocity assume a condition of perfect observation.

In this situation, every action by every person has a simultaneous effect and no one is permitted to have a different assessment.

Although the perfect observation assumption is an unrealistic constraint, this assumption cannot be completely disregarded because analysis then becomes extremely difficult owing to an increased number of variables.

Okada's team succeeded in analysing a model that has no assumption of perfect observation using computer simulations.

According to their results, a norm of solo reciprocity is not sufficient to maintain cooperation, but it can maintain cooperation in solidarity with unconditional cooperators.

Moreover, they reveal that a society with solidarity between norms is more cooperative than that with solo reciprocity.

"So far, philanthropy is excluded by researchers because it is a second-order free-rider that does not punish non-cooperative actions. However, the discussion is solely under an assumption of perfect observation," Okada stated.

The research appears in Scientific Reports journal. 

-ANI