Cooperation in social dilemmas: Biological Foundations and context-dependent social norms

Abstract

This dissertation explores biological and institutional factors determining human cooperation using an experimental economics approach. It includes two published articles. The first one is called “No association between genetic variants in MAOA, OXTR, and AVPR1a and cooperative strategies” and the second one is named “Effects of experience with access regimes on stewardship behaviors of small-scale fishers”. The first study explores the genetic basis of cooperative strategies in humans. To do so it assesses the association between the strategies displayed by university students in a public good game with the variability observed in three candidate genetic variants. The latter study explores the role played by formal institutions in fostering cooperative norms in groups of users of natural resources. To do this it compares the cooperative behaviors displayed by artisanal fishers in a common pool resource game framed under two scenarios. Each scenario recreates one of two access regimes these fishers face in their real life. The differences in behavior displayed between the two scenarios are suggestive of the norms and expectations that subjects have internalized under each access regime in real life.