Cooperation survives even when cheating pays hugely and system costs are steep.

Evidence

I can, however, also choose to take the risk of cooperating with you on some matter even if I do not trust you. While he was the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, when asked if he trusted Yassir Arafat, said, “I don’t know what it means to trust. He is the Palestinian leader, not the Israeli leader, and he is determined to do whatever he can to achieve Palestinian objectives. The real question is not whether we trust him. The question is whether there is a potential agreement that could be better overall for both sides, a win-win, not a zero-sum game” (quoted in Goldberg 2001, 66). Cooperation or coordination is the general goal, but there are many ways to achieve it, some of which do not depend on trust. Hence my actions are not simply determined by the degree of my trust, although they are often likely to be influenced by my trust or distrust. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 100 (#expands, via linked claim)

In addition, we require a theory of how to act on relevant streetlevel knowledge. I presume here that this theory of decision is a simple commonsense learning theory. You may start with such limited information about me that you can only estimate the likelihood that the typical person in my position would be trustworthy with respect to what you might entrust to me. You might even have such limited information about me that you can only assess from your past experience whether cooperation has paid off in similar circumstances. Suppose it did, and now you risk cooperating with me. (This is not to say you choose to trust me. Rather, gambling on me seems to you the rational thing to do.) You either gain or lose from your cooperation, and this experience is added to your evidence on trustworthiness for future occasions. If I am somehow a new kind of person in your experience, your initial estimate may be unstable, and my behavior might tilt your assessment heavily for or against my kind in future encounters. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 536 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

What is at issue is not the importance of exploring in greater depth the causality of those forms of cooperation which are independent of trust — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2830 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Cooperation is broader than trust and mostly grounded in institutions, not trust. (similarity 0.84)
• Institutions enabling safe cooperation must precede trustworthiness, which precedes trust (similarity 0.82)
• Cooperation is often rational gambling on typical trustworthiness, not chosen trust. (similarity 0.81)
• Cooperation can occur without trust when incentives align (similarity 0.81)
• Cheating tempts traders while cooperation yields shared gains. (similarity 0.80)
• Highly cooperative societies can sustain mutual trust without religion. (similarity 0.80)
• Trust is a small-scale phenomenon that institutions must replace to enable large-scale cooperation (similarity 0.79)
• Cooperation rests on coercion, interests, values, and personal bonds (similarity 0.79)
• Cooperation depends on trust plus situation-specific constraints and incentives (similarity 0.79)
• Strategies to minimize reliance on trust have been conflated with neglecting to understand it. (similarity 0.79)
• Institutions enable cooperation specifically where distrust is justified. (similarity 0.79)
• Trust emerges as a result of cooperation rather than an element of social capital. (similarity 0.78)
• Cooperation thrives where stakes are low, threats absent, and ambiguity reduced (similarity 0.78)
• Cooperation norms persist through credible punishment of defectors. (similarity 0.78)
• Trust is a result rather than a precondition of cooperation (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Cooperation can occur without trust when incentives align #expands (0.85) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 100
• Cooperation is often rational gambling on typical trustworthiness, not chosen trust. #corroborates (0.84) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 536
• Cooperation can operate independently of trust #expands (0.82) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2830
• A cheater’s success depends on parasitizing a trustworthy system #qualifies (0.80)
• Groups induce cooperation through sanctions even without trusting their members #expands (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 808
• Sanction-backed protection against worst risks enables wider productive cooperation #qualifies (0.78) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 254
• Trust survives widespread fraud in advanced economies #complicates (0.75) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 722
• Mafia protection makes collusion more likely, elaborate, and enduring #exemplifies (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 521