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Social networks affect individuals’ ability to solve conflicts between individual and collective interests. Indeed, the ability to seek out cooperative others is a key explanation for the high levels of cooperation observed in social life. In contrast to existing research on cooperation and networks, sorting in the real world is typically driven by homophily, or similarity on socially significant attributes like ethnicity or religion. Here the authors develop and test an argument about how homophily alters network dynamics and cooperation using a large web-based experiment and an agent-based model. They find that homophily promotes cooperation, net of key determinants of cooperation. Further, homophily drives the selection of new ties, increasing clustering in dynamic networks. The authors also demonstrate the consequences of in-group preferences for between-group segregation. Their results therefore shed light on how cooperation can evolve in networks and how this process contributes to network-level segregation.

Social networks affect individuals’ ability to solve conflicts between individual and collective interests. Indeed, the ability to seek out cooperative others is a key explanation for the high levels of cooperation observed in social life. In contrast to existing research on cooperation and networks, sorting in the real world is typically driven by homophily, or similarity on socially significant attributes like ethnicity or religion. Here the authors develop and test an argument about how homophily alters network dynamics and cooperation using a large web-based experiment and an agent-based model. They find that homophily promotes cooperation, net of key determinants of cooperation. Further, homophily drives the selection of new ties, increasing clustering in dynamic networks. The authors also demonstrate the consequences of in-group preferences for between-group segregation. Their results therefore shed light on how cooperation can evolve in networks and how this process contributes to network-level segregation.

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate. Little is known about people’s preferred responses to norm violations across countries. Here, in a study of 57 countries, the authors highlight cultural similarities and differences in people’s perception of the appropriateness of norm violations.

Conflict between Democrats and Republicans is a central component of the contemporary American political system. Negative feelings and discrimination based on political orientation are at an all-time high, leading otherwise similar Americans to deeply distrust one another. Social identity theory provides a framework for not only understanding how this distrust between partisans persists, but how it may be negated. This study builds on recent work on moral judgments and trust games to create situations to increase trust across party lines. Using an online-experimental design, this study investigates the effects of two types of moral judgments on trust building: 1) moral judgments characterized by consensus, where agreement is expected for most Americans (e.g. cheating is bad), and 2) moral judgments characterized by dissensus, where there is a large amount of disagreement across party lines (e.g. abortion rights). In the moral consensus condition, I predict that agreement on a moral universal will lead participants to view others from the opposing party as more moral and trustworthy, which, in turn, will lead to more cooperation and prosocial behavior in a trust game. Conversely, I predict that making disagreement salient will increase the distrust that already exists between Democrats and Republicans, leading to less cooperation and prosocial behavior between partisans.This experiment uses a 2 (political group: same or different) x 4 (moral stance: pro-life, pro-choice, universal, or control) design, which allows me to explore how the effects of moral disagreement differ for ingroup members versus outgroup members. Therefore, this study can answer two research questions 1) Does moral consensus build trust between political outgroup members? and 2) Does moral disagreement decrease trust of ingroup members? Results from this study will be presented and future directions will be discussed for improving political discourse and generalizing interpersonal trust to a group-level.

The original version of this Article contained an error in the author affiliations. Cecilia Reyna was incorrectly associated with ‘Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC). Facultad de Psicología (UNC), Ciudad Universitaria, Bv. de la Reforma esquina, Enfermera Gordillo s/n, Córdoba, Argentina.’ instead of the correct ‘Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIPsi), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), CABA, República Argentina.’ This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article. © The Author(s) 2021