Group bias in cooperative norm enforcement

Abstract

A hallmark of human social cognition is the tendency for both adults and children to favour members of their own groups. Critically, this in-group bias exerts a strong influence on cooperative decision-making: people (i) tend to share more with members of their in-group and (ii) differentially enforce fairness norms depending on the group membership of their interaction partners. But why do people show these group biases in cooperation? One possibility is that the enforcement of cooperative norm violations is an evolved mechanism supporting within-group cooperation (Norms-Focused Hypothesis). Alternatively, group bias in cooperation could be a by-product of more general affective preferences for in-group members (Mere Preferences Hypothesis). Here, we appraise evidence from studies of both adults and children with the goal of understanding whether one of these two accounts is better supported by existing data. While the pattern of evidence is complex, much of it is broadly consistent with the Mere Preferences Hypothesis and little is uniquely supportive of the Norms-Focused Hypothesis. We highlight possible reasons for this complexity and suggest ways that future work can continue to help us understand the important relationship between group bias and cooperation.