ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
The psychological foundations of reputation-based cooperation.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- No evidence for inequity aversion in non-human animals: a meta-analysis of accept/reject paradigms.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Pooled it
- One's Actions "Aging Poorly": An Integrative Egocentric Framework for Understanding Impression Management Errors and the Challenge of Temporal Impression Management.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2026Review
- Intuitive and deliberative processes underlying commitment signaling for cooperative assortment.iScience · 2026Article
- Social evaluation of skilfulness in Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and brown capuchins (Sapajus apella).Animal cognition · 2026Article
- An evolutionary approach to privacy and information-management psychology.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Dynamic inconsistency in great apes.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Unravelling the many facets of human cooperation in an experimental study.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- A marine cleaning mutualism provides new insights in biological market dynamics.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Shibboleth: An agent-based model of signalling mimicry.PloS one · 2023Article
- The restart effect in social dilemmas shows humans are self-interested not altruistic.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Are some cultures more mind-minded in their moral judgements than others?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The benefits of being seen to help others: indirect reciprocity and reputation-based partner choice.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The content and structure of reputation domains across human societies: a view from the evolutionary social sciences.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Gossip and reputation in everyday life.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The complexity of human cooperation under indirect reciprocity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 8 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Humans care about having a positive reputation, which may prompt them to help in scenarios where the return benefits are not obvious. Various game-theoretical models support the hypothesis that concern for reputation may stabilize cooperation beyond kin, pairs or small groups. However, such models are not explicit about the underlying psychological mechanisms that support reputation-based cooperation. These models therefore cannot account for the apparent rarity of reputation-based cooperation in other species. Here, we identify the cognitive mechanisms that may support reputation-based cooperation in the absence of language. We argue that a large working memory enhances the ability to delay gratification, to understand others' mental states (which allows for perspective-taking and attribution of intentions) and to create and follow norms, which are key building blocks for increasingly complex reputation-based cooperation. We review the existing evidence for the appearance of these processes during human ontogeny as well as their presence in non-human apes and other vertebrates. Based on this review, we predict that most non-human species are cognitively constrained to show only simple forms of reputation-based cooperation. This article is part of the theme issue 'The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.