SOCCOP: The Social and Mental Dynamics of Cooperation

The aim of SOCCOP Projects was to  identify and explore, both theoretically and empirically, the fundamental structural, interactional and mental determinants of the evolution of cooperation among unrelated individuals in humans and other species. The goal has been to establish how far the traditional self-interest/reciprocal altruism view of cooperation can be extended and at what critical points are the model of social preferences and other-regarding behaviour required. Different approaches and disciplinary perspectives and different sub-issues has converged on this crucial objective.

Project Leader: Prof. Herbert Gintis, Central European University (CEU), Budapest, Hungary

Principal Investigators:

• Prof. Samuel Bowles, Santa Fe Institute, USA
• Prof. Cristiano Castelfranchi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Roma, Italy
• Prof. Michel Kerszberg, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
• Prof. Arcadi Navarro, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
• Prof. Eörs Szathmary, Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary

Associated Partners: 

• Prof. Ernst Fehr, University of Zürich, Switzerland
• Dr. Alex Kacelnik, University of Oxford, UK
• Prof. Ruth Mace, University College London, UK
• Dr. Robert Rowthorn, Cambridge University, UK