The Social Maintenance of Cooperation through Hypocrisy

TL;DR

This paper explores how hypocrisy, by allowing individuals to claim cooperation while acting selfishly, can sustain social cooperation and prevent the spread of selfish behavior, supported by theoretical and experimental evidence.

Contribution

It introduces a novel perspective on hypocrisy as a mechanism for maintaining cooperation, combining theoretical modeling with experimental validation.

Findings

Hypocrisy can sustain cooperation by masking selfish behavior.

Hypocrisy prevents the spread of selfish strategies in social groups.

Experimental results support the theoretical model.

Abstract

Cooperation is widespread in human societies, but its maintenance at the group level remains puzzling if individuals benefit from not cooperating. Explanations of the maintenance of cooperation generally assume that cooperative and non-cooperative behavior in others can be assessed and copied accurately. However, humans have a well known capacity to deceive and thus to manipulate how others assess their behavior. Here, we show that hypocrisy - claiming to be acting cooperatively while acting selfishly - can maintain social cooperation because it prevents the spread of selfish behavior. We demonstrate this effect both theoretically and experimentally. Hypocrisy allows the cooperative strategy to spread by taking credit for the success of the non-cooperative strategy.