Emotions appear to be a key regulator of behavior in cooperative relationships. Emotions affect behavior both directly, by motivating action, and indirectly, as actors anticipate others' emotional responses.
The five major approaches to answering how cooperation emerges and becomes stable in nature (Group Selection, Kinship Theory, Direct Reciprocity, Indirect Reciprocity, and Social Learning) might be improved by not presuming asexual and non-overlapping generations, simultaneous-play for every interaction, dyadic interactions, mostly predetermined and mistake-free behavior, discrete actions (cooperate or defect), and the trivial role of social structure and social learning of individuals.
Game theoretic explanations of the evolution of cooperation in humans and other animals relies on assumptions -- rational players should never cooperate, cooperative behavior is explained by direct or diffuse reciprocity, animals can do the mental bookkeeping necessary to reciprocate with multiple partners over time -- that are not always or often borne out by data, necessitating new conceptual tools.
Network closure produces echo, gossip that reinforces dispositions rather than increasing information flow or the kind of trust that increases social capital.
Most issues related to the social, political and economic changes we are witnessing today due to the emergence and use of technologies of cooperation can be analyzed by using a matrix tracking levels of knowledge on one axis, and levels of interactivity of the other axis.
Network forms of organization, with reciprocal patterns of communication and exchange, are alternatives to hierarchically or market based governance structures; they are more suited to describing companies involved in an intricate latticework of collaborative ventures with other firms over extended periods of time.
Without a concerted effort against it, the trend of privatization and enclosure threatens to sacrifice the environmental, political, cultural, and information commons that communities rely on for their long-term health and prosperity.
Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation and collective action of both beneficial and destructive kinds.
Dan Bricklin examines ways to induce a pool of users to contribute to a commons without extra effort, using the architecture of the commons (as in Napster's default to sharing in the way download directories are available) and leveraging user's self-interest.
A flexible and coordinated response by the Toyota Group's supplier network enabled the manufacturer to rapidly restore production after a disastrous fire; the self-organized cooperation was enabled by deliberately designed practices that created dense social networks of trust and reciprocity that extended beyond Toyota's boundaries and into the companies of its network of suppliers.
