CDPXXX10.1177/0963721420906200Pärnamets et al.Value-Based Framework for Cooperation 906200research-article2020 ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Current Directions in Psychological Science A Value-Based Framework for 2020, Vol. 29(3) 227 –234 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: Understanding Cooperation sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420906200 10.1177/0963721420906200 www.psychologicalscience.org/CDPS Philip Pärnamets1,2, Anastasia Shuster3, Diego A. Reinero2 , and Jay J. Van Bavel2 1Division of Psychology, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet; 2Department of Psychology, New York University; and 3Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai Abstract Understanding the roots of human cooperation, a social phenomenon embedded in pressing issues including climate change and social conflict, requires an interdisciplinary perspective. We propose a unifying value-based framework for understanding cooperation that integrates neuroeconomic models of decision-making with psychological variables involved in cooperation. We propose that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex serves as a neural integration hub for value computation during cooperative decisions, receiving inputs from various neurocognitive processes such as attention, memory, and learning. Next, we describe findings from social and personality psychology highlighting factors that shape the value of cooperation, including research on contexts and norms, personal and social identity, and intergroup relations. Our approach advances theoretical debates about cooperation by highlighting how previous findings are accommodated within a general value-based framework and offers novel predictions. Keywords cooperation, preferences, norms, social neuroscience, neuroeconomics Cooperation is a central feature of group living and map for psychologists and help promote cumulative involves any action that benefits other people while science. In the main section of the article, we consider incurring a potential cost to oneself (Rand & Nowak, broader cognitive and social factors that shape value 2013). Human cooperation emerges very early in life and influence it in a cooperative context. Finally, we and is necessary for the healthy functioning of teams, lay out potential opportunities for research under this organizations, and nations as well as for solving press- integrative approach and develop novel predictions. ing crises such as climate change. Different disciplines address the problem of cooperation. Whereas the field Social Dilemmas as a Tool to Study of neuroeconomics aims to find the neural correlates of cooperative decision-making, social and personality Cooperation psychology studies how contextual factors and indi- Cooperation—unlike altruism—does not necessarily vidual differences can influence cooperation. We outline incur costs to the individual; nevertheless, researchers a framework that allows for integration across disciplin- prefer to study it in the context of social dilemmas in ary boundaries with the goal of providing a compre- which self-interest is directly pitted against collective hensive view of human cooperation that paves the way interest. Social dilemmas are prevalent in everyday life, for further interdisciplinary research (see Fig. 1a). have serious consequences, and provide researchers a We first briefly summarize what is currently known chance to disentangle and quantify underlying competing about the neural encoding of value and the inputs that modulate it, highlighting processes relevant for coop- Corresponding Author: eration. Although the contributions of the neural areas Jay J. Van Bavel, New York University, Department of Psychology, discussed are still areas of active research, we describe Meyer Hall, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 the standard model, one that will serve as a useful road E-mail: [email protected] 228 a b Goals and Control Expectations and Norms Social Cognition dlPFC ACC, AI, rlPFC TPJ, pSTS - Modulating Value of - Expectations of Other People’s - Representations of Other Cooperation in Accordance Cooperations or Local Norms That People’s Goals and Intentions With Current Goals and Shift Value of Cooperation - Individual Differences in Social Motivations - Monitoring of Other People’s Preferences Expected Actions Valuation System Standard Model of Value-Based Decisions vmPFC, Ventral Striatum - Value of Cooperation in Neural Common Currency - Reward Expectancies Based on Selected Action c Interpersonal Synchrony Memory Social Factors Visual Attention - Social Identities of Self and of Hippocampus Future Directions - Increases Relative Value - Supporting Value Others, the Number of Participants of Attended Options in the Social Dilemma, and Promises Computations Through Exchanged All Affect the Value of Episodic Sampling Cooperation Fig. 1. Summary of the value-based framework for cooperation (left) and example trial from a public-goods game (right). The schematic of the value-based framework for cooperation (a) shows known modulatory inputs (top row) that affect the computation of cooperative value (middle row). These inputs include goals and control, expectations and norms, and social cognition. The bottom row shows new avenues for research originating in social and cognitive psychology and neuroscience, includ- ing social factors, visual attention, and memory. These factors are implemented in various regions shown in the brain image and modulate the value system, which is implemented in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and ventral striatum. In a social dilemma such as the public-goods game, players are faced with tension between cooperating and benefiting the collective or acting selfishly. Players are given an initial allocation of money and can either keep it or contribute it to the com- mon good (b). Money contributed to the common good is multiplied by some factor (here, 2) and then equally redistributed to all players (c). The noncooperative player (dark gray) receives a higher total payoff than the cooperative players (light gray). However, collective gains would have been maximized if all players had cooperated. dlPFC = dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; ACC = anterior cingulate cortex; AI = anterior insula; rlPFC = right lateral prefrontal cortex; TPJ = temporoparietal junction; pSTS = posterior superior temporal sulcus. Value-Based Framework for Cooperation 229 motivations (Bowles & Gintis, 2013). The primary tools orbitofrontal cortex,2 and the ventral striatum (Levy & of cooperation research are economic games that Glimcher, 2012). Our framework assumes that coopera- model social dilemmas by creating conditions for costly tion and defection use the same neural circuitry to assign prosocial and cooperative behavior under controlled subjective values and make decisions. conditions (see Fehr & Camerer, 2007). For example, Evidence suggests that cooperation engages the value the public-goods game or the prisoner’s dilemma (see system. Studies have found vmPFC activity when people Figs. 1b and 1c) model social dilemmas in which if choose to donate, act fairly, and cooperate, and both everyone acts selfishly, everyone is worse off. Coopera- vmPFC and ventral striatum respond more strongly to tion is a type of prosocial behavior, along with altruism equality than inequality (Cutler & Campbell-Meiklejohn, and fairness (e.g., studied in the dictator game or ulti- 2019; Fehr & Camerer, 2007; Ruff & Fehr, 2014). Alter- matum game1). Because the neural correlates of pro- natively, lesions to the vmPFC reduce prosocial behav- sociality have been more widely investigated (Ruff & ior and the guilt associated with it (Krajbich, Adolphs, Fehr, 2014), we draw from findings across the literature Tranel, Denburg, & Camerer, 2009). Thus, the overall under the assumption that similar neural circuitry is subjective value of cooperation, the combination of involved. motives and payoffs characterizing these dilemmas, is Social dilemmas require a consideration of self- and represented in the value system. other-regarding motivations, which are captured by the Subjective value is constructed using inputs from concept of social preferences, which refers to how peo- multiple brain regions, including areas associated with ple value outcomes to themselves and others (Fehr & basic cognitive processes and social functions. For Camerer, 2007). Social-preference models contain example, the presence or absence of extrinsic rewards parameters that capture the trade-off between self- and for cooperation elicits altruistic or strategic modes of other-regarding concerns during social dilemmas (Fehr cooperation that rely on distinct neural computations & Schmidt, 1999). These parameters are flexible enough (Cutler & Campbell-Meiklejohn, 2019). Such inputs can to account for different phenomena—including endog- flexibly alter behavior to accommodate changing con- enous motives, such as the “warm glow” one gets from texts and preferences and eventually tip the balance acting cooperatively (Andreoni, 1990), as well as exog- toward selfish or cooperative choices. In the next sec- enous motives, such as the threat of peer punishment tion, we discuss these inputs. for defecting—that are known to increase and maintain cooperation over time (Fehr & Gächter, 2002; Fehr & Value modulation Schurtenberger, 2018). By considering cooperation as a computational process weighing costs and benefits Executive control. Executive control, implemented by for the self