Are Humans Inherently Selfish?

Selfishness is one of those traits that can sometimes seem instinctual. Don’t people generally look out for themselves… even if it means hurting others? While we often assume that selfishness is an innate driving force, that may not be the whole story…

The study

In 2012, David Rand of Yale University along with Harvard professors, Martin Nowak and Joshua Greene set out to answer the complicated question of whether human nature is basically selfish or altruistic. They did this by collecting data from 10 experiments which primarily relied on a standard economics scenario called a public-goods game.

In the game, groups of 4 people were given money and allowed to place some of it in an evenly distributed pool. Participants had the option of maximizing their income by contributing nothing and just sharing in the gains. Surprisingly, despite the temptation to be selfish, most people gave something. 

But, there was more to investigate. How did deliberation factor into their decisions? Did the people who thought about it longer give more or less? Assuming that action before deliberation is indicative of an innate response, the findings were even more consequential.

What they found was that those who responded quickly gave more, indicating that our intuitive default is cooperation.

This wasn’t the only study to find that humans are naturally prone to selflessness. In another paper, Rand and Ziv Epstein of Pomona College studied interviews with 51 recipients of the Carnegie Hero Medal, who had demonstrated extreme altruism by risking their lives to save others. Again, the results seemed to indicate that those who deliberated less were more likely to put others' needs before their own. 

But, this real world scenario was only the beginning. Rand sought a way to create a quantitative model of human selfishness vs. selflessness. To do that, he employed a twist on a classic game called Prisoner’s Dilemma in which two players have to decide whether to cooperate with or to betray the other. 

By combining the short-term temptation to be selfish with the long-term benefits of collaboration, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is an ideal model for human cooperation. Typically, when the game is played multiple times, cooperating most of the rounds is beneficial. But, Rand’s version of the game added a twist...participants didn’t know if the matchups were one-shot or multiple-round, unless they elected to pay points at the start of each game.  These points were representative of deliberation.

What they found was that neither players who always cooperated nor those who almost always double-crossed were very successful.

What do the results mean?

What the researchers realized is that when someone’s default is to betray, the benefits of occasionally cooperating are uncertain. However, if their default is to cooperate, there are some benefits to occasionally acting selfishly…. No matter what the other player does.

This study indicates that there is evolutionary logic to the human instinct to cooperate, but adjust if necessary. Overall, cooperation brings us benefits, but by using reason, we can determine when acting selfishly is the better option. 

Can people be taught to cooperate?

The good news is that our intuitions about cooperation are not fixed at birth.  Instead, they evolve based on the interactions that we have. Changing the interactions will change the behavior.  

Rand showed this tendency to learn to cooperate through another series of games. He had test subjects play the Prisoner’s Dilemma for about 20 minutes with a variety of opponents. For half of the players, the average game lasted eight rounds, meaning cooperation was the best strategy; for the other half, the average game lasted a single round, which discouraged cooperation.

Afterward, everyone played a public-goods game. Those who had played the Prisoner’s Dilemma games in which cooperation was beneficial gave significantly more money in the public goods game. It took less than a half hour to change their intuition to favor cooperation.

The larger implications

Knowing that most humans are wired to cooperate, how can we increase cooperation in areas in which selfish behavior has been the norm? Corporate America is probably the best example of an realm in which back-stabbing and ladder climbing has traditionally been the way to get ahead. Is there any way to shift this dynamic? There may be several.

Give incentives: When incentives are offered, the benefits of cooperating are not completely dependent on what our partners do. Companies might offer bonuses and recognition for helpful behavior. Theoretically, once cooperation becomes the norm, workers will cooperate both when it benefits them and even when it doesn’t. 

Encourage people to make decisions quickly: Rand’s studies showed how quick decisions tend to be more altruistic.  Extensions of this research reveal that we see quick or unthinking acts of generosity as particularly revealing of kindness. The more we praise people for their cooperative behavior, the more likely they are to continue being cooperative.

Observe good behavior: Rand and his team have shown that when someone is watching, people tend to be faster to make decisions to cooperate, likely because of a desire to be judged favorably. Observing and making note of cooperative behavior will encourage more cooperative behavior. 

The benefits of being nice

Rand notes that being cooperative is not only evolutionarily helpful, but also feels good.

“When I’m nice to other people, I’m not doing it because of some kind of calculation. I’m doing it because it feels good,” Rand says. “And the reason it feels good, I argue, is that it is actually payoff maximizing in the long run.” 

If selflessness not only is our innate response, but also increases success in the long run, then integrating cooperative tasks into education and the workplace may prove to be beneficial to all of us.