Cooperation in the face of disaster.

ABSTRACT: As calamities and health crises are expected to recur and become more frequent, we rely more on cooperation to prevent similar situations and to cope with their aftermaths. However, it is not clear if, how and why people cooperate in uncertain situations where losses can result from inadequate cooperation. Through theoretical modelling, experiments and simulations, we show the behavioural patterns driving cooperation in a stochastic environment. Specifically, by introducing stochastic shocks to a threshold public goods game where one can randomly incur losses when group contributions are below a specific level, we investigate what happens to cooperation when disasters strike repeatedly. The findings show that compared to a control setting, cooperation is higher and persists when there is a

SUBMITTER: Jonsson ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11967933 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature