Cooperation can occur without trust when incentives align

Evidence

Much of our ordinary cooperative activity is embedded in groups of which we are members. Groups are themselves the focus of cooperation for collective purposes, and they can help to induce cooperative behavior by their members even in essentially dyadic relationships. In the former case, when we need collective action, we might wonder whether our groups can be trusted to cooperate in accomplishing our purpose. In the latter case, we often find that our groups oversee our individual actions and induce us to be cooperative even though we could not say that the group and its members trust us. The way small communities induce their members to behave in certain cooperative or coordinative ways is through sanctions for the violation of communal norms, among the most important of which is a norm of cooperativeness within the group. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 808 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mere incentive compatibility is insufficient for trust as encapsulated interest; Cooperation can operate independently of trust; Trust is a result rather than a precondition of cooperation — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2781 (+33 more)

Related

• Groups induce cooperation through sanctions even without trusting their members (similarity 0.91)
• Small groups succeed at collective action because dyadic trust motivates cooperation (similarity 0.88)
• Highly cooperative societies can sustain mutual trust without religion. (similarity 0.86)
• Cooperative equilibria are no likelier than noncooperative ones without belief restrictions (similarity 0.85)
• Cooperation is broader than trust and mostly grounded in institutions, not trust. (similarity 0.85)
• Sanctions make trustworthiness a matter of self-interest rather than personal concern (similarity 0.84)
• Institutions enabling safe cooperation must precede trustworthiness, which precedes trust (similarity 0.84)
• Coercion and interests alone compel cooperation even without shared values (similarity 0.84)
• Explaining how cooperative groups formed requires enforcement mechanisms, not just expulsion of the asocial. (similarity 0.83)
• Cooperation rests on coercion, interests, values, and personal bonds (similarity 0.83)
• Enforced sanctions under governments underwrite all ordinary trust (similarity 0.82)
• Initial cooperation can wreck backward induction and build rational trust (similarity 0.82)
• Building stable relations generates the incentives that produce trust (similarity 0.82)
• Trust is a result rather than a precondition of cooperation (similarity 0.82)
• Cooperation norms persist through credible punishment of defectors. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Cooperation can operate independently of trust #corroborates (0.95)
• Groups induce cooperation through sanctions even without trusting their members #exemplifies (0.90) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 808
• Mutual trust in iterated exchange is selffulfilling through aligned incentives #corroborates (0.85)
• Trust is a result rather than a precondition of cooperation #expands (0.75) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2781
• Trust requires both freedom to defect and constraints that make cooperation attractive #complicates (0.75)
• Initial cooperation can wreck backward induction and build rational trust #expands (0.70) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 606
• State unreliability cascades into mutual distrust that blocks cooperation #contradicts (0.70)
• Pervasive distrust is stable because solo cooperation invites exploitation #complicates (0.70)