A Reconsideration of Inter-Group Cooperation with Defect Problem, with an Application to the Climate Change Issue

Abstract

Research has shown that seeking to benefit the own group can under certain conditions achieve the opposite result when the beneficiary inter-group cooperation opportunity is undermined with a prisoners’ dilemma type tribal interest conflict. In this paper, I reconsider this problem using knowledge gained from various disciplines ranging from psychology to social economics, to gain more insight. As an exercise, I apply the result to analyze the dealing with the climate change, while other applications are possible.