A systematic evaluation of text mining methods for short texts: Mapping individuals' internal states from online posts.

Short texts generated by individuals in online environments can provide social and behavioral scientists with rich insights into these individuals' internal states. Trained manual coders can reliably interpret expressions of such internal states in text. However, manual coding imposes restrictions on the number of texts that can be analyzed, limiting our ability to extract insights from large-scale textual data.

Signals of belonging: emergence of signalling norms as facilitators of trust and parochial cooperation.

Mechanisms of social control reinforce norms that appear harmful or wasteful, such as mutilation practises or extensive body tattoos. We suggest such norms arise to serve as signals that distinguish between ingroup 'friends' and outgroup 'foes', facilitating parochial cooperation. Combining insights from research on signalling and parochial cooperation, we incorporate a trust game with signalling in an agent-based model to study the dynamics of signalling norm emergence in groups with conflicting interests.

Does Living in a Protected Area Reduce Resource Use and Promote Life Satisfaction? Survey Results from and Around Three Regional Nature Parks in Switzerland.

Unlabelled: Regional nature parks in Switzerland are, for the most part, protected areas that aim to promote sustainable development and residents' well-being. In recent years, research on regional nature parks and comparable protected areas has focused on questions regarding local populations' acceptance of such areas, their governance, and their economic effects. However, we know surprisingly little about the impact of protected areas on environmental resource use and life satisfaction, two essential ingredients of sustainable regional development.

The competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions revisited: A multilab replication.

Is peer sanctioning a sustainable solution to the problem of human cooperation? We conducted an exact multilab replication ( = 1,008; 7 labs × 12 groups × 12 participants) of an experiment by Gürerk, Irlenbusch, and Rockenbach published in in 2006 (Gürerk Ö, Irlenbusch B, Rockenbach B. The competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions. 2006.

Human cooperation in changing groups in a large-scale public goods game.

How people cooperate to provide public goods is an important scientific question and relates to many societal problems. Previous research studied how people cooperate in stable groups in repeated or one-time-only encounters. However, most real-world public good problems occur in groups with a gradually changing composition due to old members leaving and new members arriving.

COVID-19 vulnerability and perceived norm violations predict loss of social trust: A pre-post study.

While pandemic containment measures benefit public health, they may jeopardize the social structure of society. We hypothesize that lockdowns and prolonged social distancing measures hinder social support and invite norm violations, eroding social trust. We conducted a pre-registered pre-post study on a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 2377; participation rate = 88.

Parochial cooperation and the emergence of signalling norms.

Why do people adorn themselves with elaborate body piercings or tattoos, wear obstructing garbs, engage in life-threatening competitions and other wasteful and harmful but socially stipulated practices? Norms of cooperation and coordination, which promote the efficient attainment of collective benefits, can be explained by theories of collective action. However, social norms prescribing wasteful and harmful behaviours have eluded such explanations. We argue that signalling theory constitutes the basis for the understanding of the emergence of such norms, which we call signalling norms.

Honesty and dishonesty in gossip strategies: a fitness interdependence analysis.

Gossip, or sharing information about absent others, has been identified as an effective solution to free rider problems in situations with conflicting interests. Yet, the information transmitted via gossip can be biased, because gossipers may send dishonest information about others for personal gains. Such dishonest gossip makes reputation-based cooperation more difficult to evolve.

Reputation effects in peer-to-peer online markets: A meta-analysis.

Most online market exchanges are governed by reputation systems, which allow traders to comment on one another's behavior and attributes with ratings and text messages. These ratings then constitute sellers' reputations that serve as signals of their trustworthiness and competence. The large body of research investigating the effect of reputation on selling performance has produced mixed results, and there is a lack of consensus on whether the reputation effect exists and what it means.

The emergence of conventions in the repeated volunteer's dilemma: The role of social value orientation, payoff asymmetries and focal points.

Conventions are arbitrary rules of behavior that coordinate social interactions. Here we study the effects of individuals' social value orientations (SVO) and situational conditions on the emergence of conventions in the three-person volunteer's dilemma (VOD). The VOD is a step-level collective good game in which only one actor's action is required to produce a benefit for the group.

Heterogeneous groups cooperate in public good problems despite normative disagreements about individual contribution levels.

Norms can promote human cooperation to provide public goods. Yet, the potential of norms to promote cooperation may be limited to homogeneous groups in which all members benefit equally from the public good. Individual heterogeneity in the benefits of public good provision is commonly conjectured to bring about normative disagreements that harm cooperation.

How dominance hierarchies emerge from conflict: A game theoretic model and experimental evidence.

We develop a game theoretic model of conflict and empirically test its predictions to study the emergence of social hierarchies in small groups. Previous research shows uncertainty about actors' ability may lead to more conflict; conflict demonstrates actors' ability and establishes relationships of dominance and submissiveness. Since we assume uncertainty regarding ability to be a crucial cause of conflict, we focus on the effects of different information conditions.

Heterogeneous groups overcome the diffusion of responsibility problem in social norm enforcement.

Social norms promote cooperation in everyday life because many people are willing to negatively sanction norm breakers at a cost to themselves. However, a norm violation may persist if only one person is required to sanction the norm breaker and everyone expects someone else to do it. Here we employ the volunteer's dilemma game (VOD) to model this diffusion of responsibility in social norm enforcement.

Consensual punishment does not promote cooperation in the six-person prisoner's dilemma game with noisy public monitoring.

We study the effects of different punishment institutions on cooperation in a six-person prisoner's dilemma game in which actors observe others' cooperation with some noise (i.e. imperfect public monitoring).

Punitive preferences, monetary incentives and tacit coordination in the punishment of defectors promote cooperation in humans.

Peer-punishment is effective in promoting cooperation, but the costs associated with punishing defectors often exceed the benefits for the group. It has been argued that centralized punishment institutions can overcome the detrimental effects of peer-punishment. However, this argument presupposes the existence of a legitimate authority and leaves an unresolved gap in the transition from peer-punishment to centralized punishment.

Natural and strategic generosity as signals of trustworthiness.

We exploit the fact that generosity and trustworthiness are highly correlated and the former can thus be a sign of the latter. Subjects decide between a generous and a mean split in a dictator game. Some of them are informed from the start that afterwards they will participate in a trust game and that their choice in the dictator game may matter; others are not informed in advance.

Individual heterogeneity and costly punishment: a volunteer's dilemma.

Social control and the enforcement of social norms glue a society together. It has been shown theoretically and empirically that informal punishment of wrongdoers fosters cooperation in human groups. Most of this research has focused on voluntary and uncoordinated punishment carried out by individual group members.