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The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition Paperback – December 5, 2006

by Robert Axelrod (Author), Richard Dawkins (Foreword)

367

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A famed political scientist's classic argument for a more cooperative world

We assume that, in a world ruled by natural selection, selfishness pays. So why cooperate? In The Evolution of Cooperation, political scientist Robert Axelrod seeks to answer this question. In 1980, he organized the famed Computer Prisoners Dilemma Tournament, which sought to find the optimal strategy for survival in a particular game. Over and over, the simplest strategy, a cooperative program called Tit for Tat, shut out the competition. In other words, cooperation, not unfettered competition, turns out to be our best chance for survival.

A vital book for leaders and decision makers, The Evolution of Cooperation reveals how cooperative principles help us think better about everything from military strategy, to political elections, to family dynamics.

Print length

264 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Basic Books
Publication date

December 5, 2006
Dimensions

5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0465005640
ISBN-13

978-0465005642
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Our ideas of cooperation will never be the same."―The Wall Street Journal

"When I read The Evolution of Cooperation in draft form, I scribbled all over my copy: 'Incredible!' 'Amazing!' 'Weird!' 'Fascinating!' 'Elegant!' 'Great!' I guess that tells you what I genuinely think of this book."
―Douglas Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, Bach

"A fascinating introduction to the theory of cooperation, and written in a clear, informal style that makes it a joy to read."
―Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Robert Axelrod is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. A MacArthur Fellow, he is a leading expert on game theory, artificial intelligence, evolutionary biology, mathematical modeling, and complexity theory. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; Revised edition (December 5, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465005640
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465005642
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #103,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #30 in Game Theory (Books)
- #342 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions
- #1,923 in Success Self-Help

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4.6 out of 5

367 global ratings

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Amazon Customer

exactly as expected

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2024

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used book; was exactly as expected. solid option for book buying

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Gabriel Hernandez

Cooperate like your life depends on it, because the payoff is better.

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2023

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The book gives numerous examples of The Prisoner's Dilemma and how cooperation is always the best policy. You only defect after the other party does, never first. Defection can mean any number of things but always depends on the context of the situation.

Through lots of error to go with my trials I learned over the years that cooperation is the best policy. With bad bosses, obstinate coworkers, rebellious kids and angry spouses. The payoffs: material, psychological, emotional, are far higher when you cooperate and can induce others to cooperate. This book, esoteric at times, explains the mathematical theory behind the why.

If you have difficulty making decisions involving a counter party, or are just interested in the dynamics at play in working or competing with others, I highly recommend this book.

One person found this helpful

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Steve Reina

Why do we do unto others as we would have them do unto us?

Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2009

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It's perhaps one of the most fasicinating quirks of psychological research that one of the most ground breaking findings in human psychology was achieved by means of a computer tournament.

That tournament was sponsored by Robert Axelrod of the University of Michigan who developed a computer environment that would different game programs against each other to determine which survival strategy was best adapted to survival.

For those believers of life, nasty, brutish and short, the findings were nothing short of astonishing: specifically that when actors were invovled in situations where they would be repeatedly interacting with each other, survival was best enhanced by cooperation.

Otherwise known as "the golden rule" of doing unto others as you would have done unto you, a computer program known as Tit for Tat outperformed all other competitors by first seeking cooperation and then narrowly mirroring the actions of its counterparts.

In other words, if Tit for Tat met a competitor it would first seek cooperation. If the competitor cooperated, Tit for Tat would thereafter cooperate. If the competitor defected, Tit for Tat would itself immediately defect but thereafter again seek cooperation by cooperating whenever the competitor thereafter chose to cooperate.

Since the publication of the original article detailing Axelrod's findings twenty five years ago, the study of cooperation or reciprocal ultruism has found applications not only in human behavior but also in genetics and evolution itself.

Inside every cell of your body are anywhere ranging to around 1000 mitochondria. If the test for different life forms are organisms which have their own DNA, mitochondria qualify. Yet, they have always been a part of human biology. And they have been there own life domain for the better part of two billion (or more) years.

Mitochondria's ability to productively work with their host cells is an example of both genetic and biological reciprocal ultruism.

Like any ground breaking work, like Newton's Principia or Darwin's Origin of Species, I was attracted to this work so I could better witness the original flash of genius. And like with Newton's Principia and Darwin's Origin of Species I was not disappointed but found many instances in which the original researchers had advanced speculations that frankly would remain fertile areas for further research. In the case of this book, I would include Axelrod's discussion of how to better take advantage of the benefits of reciprocal ultruism and also how systems can be more reciprocal ultruism friendly.

Interestingly, the places where reciprocal ultruism has tragically broken down are places that would easily be predicted by the over arching theory.

For students of genetics, biology and even behavior I can't recommend this book highly enough. In fact, in addition to this book I would also recommed the following:

Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley which discusses the genetic aspects of reciprocal ultruism;

Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone which discusses game theory as a branch of theoretical mathematics;

Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins which is just fun; and

Oneness by Jeffrey Moses which provides verbatim quotes of the golden rule and other doxology by means of direct quotes from the world's leading religions. There's nothing like seeing material which so exactly corresponds to theoretical predictions to give you a sense of the explanatory power of the theory(ies) involved.

19 people found this helpful

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O. Halabieh

How Cooperation Emerges

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2012

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As the title indicates this book explores the topic of cooperation, particularly how it can emerge in a decentralized population that seeks individual maximization of self-interest. The book is split into two main sections. The first discusses cooperation through game-theory analysis of computer tournaments played. This includes the various strategies used, and the ones that enjoyed the most success. The second discusses the implications of the findings from the first section, and real-world applications in the fields of biology, politics, sociology etc. While the first section is somewhat dry and abstract, the second section anchors the concepts and is very applicable and practical.

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:

1- "The analysis of the data from these tournaments reveals four properties which tend to make a decision rule successful: avoidance of unnecessary conflict by cooperating as long as the other player does, provocability, in the face of an uncalled for defection by the other, forgiveness after responding to a provocation, and clarity of behavior so that the other player can adapt to your pattern of action."

2- "What accounts for TIT FOR TAT's robust success is its combination of being nice, retaliatory, forgiving, and clear. Its niceness prevents it from getting into unnecessary trouble. Its retaliation discourages the other side from persisting whenever defection is tried. Its forgiveness helps restore mutual cooperation. And its clarity makes it intelligible to the other player, thereby eliciting long-term cooperation."

3- "Thus cooperation can emerge even in a world of unconditional defection. The development cannot take place if it is tried only by scattered individuals who have no change to interact with each other. But cooperation can emerge from small clusters of discriminating individuals, as long as these individuals have even a small proportion of their interactions with each other."

4- "The live-and-let-live system that emerged in the bitter trench warfare of World War I demonstrates that friendship is hardly necessary for cooperation based upon reciprocity to get started. Under suitable circumstances, cooperation can develop even between antagonists."

5- How to Choose Effectively: "The advice takes the form of four simple suggestions for how to do well in a durable iterated Prisoner's Dilemma: 1) Don't be envious. 2) Don't be the first to defect. 3) Reciprocate both cooperation and defection. 4) Don't be too clever."

6-"...not being nice may look promising at first, by in the long run it can destroy the very environment it needs for its own success."

7- "Keeping one's intentions hidden is useful in a zero-sum game (e.g Chess) where any inefficiency in the other players behavior wil be to your benefit. But in a non-zero-sum setting it does not always pay to be so clever."

8- "So to promote cooperation through modification of the payoffs...it is only necessary to make the long-term incentive for mutual cooperation greater than the short-term incentive for defection."

9- "The ability to recognize the other player from past interactions, is necessary to sustain cooperation. Without these abilities, a player could not use any form of reciprocity and hence could not encourage the other to cooperate."

10- "The ability to recognize defection when it occurs is not the only requirement for successful cooperation to emerge, but it is certainly an important one."

11- "This kind of stereotyping has two unfortunate consequences...the obvious consequence is that everyone is doing worse than necessary because mutual cooperation between the groups could have raised everyone's core...while both groups suffer from lack of mutual cooperation, the members of the minority group suffer more."

12- "The trick is to set the stringency of the standard high enough to get most of the social benefits of regulation, and not so high as to prevent the evolution of a stable pattern of voluntary compliance from almost all of the companies."

13- "In an organizational or business setting, the best way to secure this accountability would be to keep track not only of the person's success in that position, but also the state in which the position was left to the next occupant."

14- "The core of the problem on how to achieve rewards from cooperation is that trial and error in learning is slow and painful. The conditions may all be favorable for long-run developments, but we may not have the time to wait for blind processes to move us slowly toward mutually rewarding strategies based upon reciprocity. Perhaps if we understand the process better, we can use our foresight to speed up the evolution of cooperation."

20 people found this helpful

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Neil Barnes

Quality

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

Makes a lot of sense out of a lot of things.

Very encouraging to see how cooperation can form without trust. Even between selfish/egoistic players.

Michael Schilling

One of the most important books ever written

Reviewed in Germany on January 20, 2022

Verified Purchase

Bought this a couple of times already, as it always makes for a great present for friends within academia.
The evolution of cooperation offers insight both into why we cooperate and when we don't, it's implications are therefor far reaching, as it lies at the heart of evolutionary stable strategies within politics.
I hope one day this will be common knowledge, forever upending religious arguments about morality, and replacing them with a predictive view of morality, allowing us to change the dynamics of the systems we find ourselves in.

Cliente de Amazon

Necesario para entender las relaciones humanas.

Reviewed in Mexico on July 15, 2020

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Un fantástico libro, que de manera amena trata sobre el dilema del prisionero. En verdad da un brillo a las relaciones humanas y la comprensión de las mismas. Todo aquel que quiera entender cómo funcionan las relacione humanas debería darse un clavado

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Daniel Teixeira

Ótimo!

Reviewed in Brazil on June 23, 2017

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Fala sobre a história dos torneios de estratégias para o problema do dilema do prisioneiro e como a cooperação emerge mesmo com objetivos egoístas.

2 people found this helpful

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Riccardo

Libro che non si può non leggere

Reviewed in Italy on August 25, 2019

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Libro indispensabile e dalle applicazioni infinite: anche la cooperazione ha le sue regole.

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