It’s long been assumed that people are more likely to cooperate when the benefits of doing so are higher. But a recent large-scale study from the University of Innsbruck challenges this view. After studying over 2,000 participants, researchers found no link between increased benefits and a greater willingness to cooperate.

Traditionally, cooperation has been studied through repeated interactions, where individuals build trust and adjust their behavior based on others’ actions. But many real-world situations, like volunteering or donating to crisis relief, are one-time decisions without future interactions.

Group cooperation

The study examined cooperation in groups where participants had only one opportunity to cooperate, without knowing who else was in the group. Despite varying the benefits of cooperation, the researchers found no significant change in people’s willingness to cooperate.

The key factor seemed to be participants’ expectations. Even when the benefits of cooperation doubled, people didn’t expect others to cooperate more—and therefore, didn’t increase their own cooperation efforts.

“This shows a gap in our understanding of cooperation in one-off situations,” the researchers note. Typically, higher benefits should reduce the conflict between self-interest and social good, leading to more cooperation. But the results suggest that, even with increased incentives, real-world cooperation—like donating to disaster relief—may not be driven by a calculation of personal gain.

On average, participants were willing to invest about 40% of their available money to benefit their group, regardless of the setting.

The findings suggest spontaneous cooperation in one-off situations, like disaster relief, may be more common than expected. This has important implications for encouraging cooperation in urgent scenarios, and highlights the need for further study of what drives cooperative behavior—one of the core traits of human society.