Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:47:49.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Deciding to Cooperate in Northern Ghana: Trust as an Evolutionary Constraint Across Cultural Diversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2015

Cristina Acedo-Carmona  and
Antoni Gomila
Cristina Acedo-Carmona*
Affiliation:
Universidad de las Islas Baleares (Spain)
Antoni Gomila
Affiliation:
Universidad de las Islas Baleares (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cristina Acedo-Carmona. Universidad de las Islas Baleares. Department of Psychology. Cra. de Valldemossa, km. 7,5. 07122. Palma de Mallorca (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The upper-east and northern regions of Ghana offers a unique opportunity to study the influence of evolutionary social dynamics in making cooperation possible, despite cultural differences. These regions are occupied by several distinct ethnic groups, in interaction, such as the Kussasi, Mamprusi, Bimoba, Konkomba, and Fulani. We will report our fieldwork related to how cooperation takes places there, both within each group and among people from the different groups. Methods included personal networks of cooperation (ego networks), interviews and analysis of group contexts. The most important result is that, while each ethnic group may differ in terms of family and clan structure, a similar pattern can be found in all of them, of cooperation structured around small groups of trust-based close relationships. The study suggests that habitual decisions about cooperation are not strategic or self-interested, but instead are based on unconscious processes sustained by the emotional bonds of trust. These kind of emotional bonds are claimed to be relevant from an evolutionary point of view.

Keywords

cooperationdecision makingevolutionculturetrust
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 18 , 2015 , E91
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acedo-Carmona, C., & Gomila, A. (2012). Trust, social capital and the evolution of human sociality. The Asian Conference on Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences. Conference Proceedings, 5, 492–506.Google Scholar
Acedo-Carmona, C., & Gomila, A. (2013). Trust and cooperation: A new experimental approach. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1299, 77–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acedo-Carmona, C., & Gomila, A. (2014). Personal trust increases cooperation beyond general trust. PLoS ONE, 9, e105559. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0105559 Google Scholar
Acedo-Carmona, C., & Gomila, A. (2015). Trust matters: A cross-cultural comparison of Northern Ghana and Oaxaca groups. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 661. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00661 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adams, G. (2005). The cultural grounding of personal relationship: Enemyship in North American and West African worlds. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 948–968. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.948 Google Scholar
Adams, G., & Plaut, V. C. (2003). The cultural grounding of personal relationship: Friendship in North American and West African worlds. Personal Relationships, 10, 333–347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-6811.00053 Google Scholar
Agbosu, L., Awumbila, M., Dowuona-Hammond, C., & Tsikata, D. (2007). Customary and statutory land tenure and land policy in Ghana. ISSER Technical Publication, 70. Accra, Ghana: University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Alexander, R. D. (1987). The biology of moral systems. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Assimeng, M. (1990). Bimoba sociological study. Accra, Ghana: University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Bemile, S. (2000). Promotion of Ghanaian languages and its impact on national unity: The Dagara language case. In Lentz, C. & Nugent, P. (Eds.), Ethnicity in Ghana: The limits of invention (pp. 204–225). London, UK: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2011). A cooperative species. Human reciprocity and its evolution. Princeton, NJ and Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781400838837 Google Scholar
Cleveland, D. A. (1991). Migration in West Africa: A savanna village perspective. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 61, 222–246. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1160616 Google Scholar
Cohen, R. (1978). Ethnicity: Problem and focus in Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 7, 379–403. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.07.100178.002115 Google Scholar
Drucker-Brown, S. (1975). Ritual aspects of the Mamprusi kingship. African Studies Social Research Documents (Vol. 8). Cambridge, UK: African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Ekeh, P. P. (1990). Social Antrhropology and two contrasting uses of tribalism in Africa. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 32, 660–700. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500016698 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guttman, J. M. (1996). Rational actors, tit-for-tat types, and the evolution of cooperation. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 29(1), 27–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0167-2681(95)00050-X Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814–834. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.4.814 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hart, K. (1971). Migration and tribal identity among the Frafras of Ghana. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 4, 21–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002190967100600102 Google Scholar
Hatfield, E., & Rapson, R. L. (2000). Love and the attachment process. In Lewis, M. & Haviland, J. (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 637–653). New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Hilton, T. E. (1962). Notes on the history of Kussasi. Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 6, 79–86.Google Scholar
Hippolyt, A. S. (2003). Exclusion, association and violence: Trends and triggers in Northern Ghana’s Konkomba-Dagomba wars. The African Anthropologist, 10(1), 39–82.Google Scholar
Kallgren, C. A., Reno, R. R., & Cialdini, R. B. (2000). A focus theory of normative conduct: When norms do and do not affect behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1002–1012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01461672002610009 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux.Google Scholar
Kotey, N. A. (1995). Land and tree tenure and rural development forestry in northern Ghana. University of Ghana Law Journal, 19, 102–132.Google Scholar
Kuper, A. (1982). Lineage theory: A critical retrospect. Annual Review of Ahthropology, 11, 71–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.11.100182.000443 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lentz, C. (2000). Colonial constructions and African initiatives: The history of ethnicity in Northwestern Ghana. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 65(1), 107–136. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/001418400360661 Google Scholar
Loewenstein, G. F., Weber, E. U., Hsee, C. K., & Welch, N. (2001). Risk as feelings. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 267–286. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.2.267 Google Scholar
Luhmann, N. (1979). Trust and power. Chichester, UK: Wiley.Google Scholar
March, J. (1994). A primer on decision-making: How decisions happen. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Murnighan, J. K., & Ross, T. (1999). On the collaborative potential of psychology and economics. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 39, 1–10.Google Scholar
Nelissen, R. M. A., Dijker, A. J. M., & de Vries, N. K. (2007). Emotions and goals: Assessing relations between values and emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 902–911. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699930600861330 Google Scholar
Ranger, T. (1983). The invention of tradition in colonial Africa. In Hobsbawm, E. & Ranger, T. (Eds.), The invention of tradition (pp. 211–262). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107295636.006 Google Scholar
Rattray, R. (1932). The tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland, (Vol. 2). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Schlee, G. (2004). Taking sides and constructing identities: Reflections on conflict theory. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10(1), 135–156. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2004.00183.x CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (2000). Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 645–665. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00003435 Google Scholar
Stiller, J., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2007). Perspective-taking and memory capacity predict social network size. Social Networks, 29, 93–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2006.04.001 Google Scholar
Tait, D. (1961). The Konkomba of Northern Ghana. International African Institute, London, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tonah, S. (2005). Fulani in Ghana. Migration history, integration and resistance. The Research and Publication Unit Department of Sociology, Accra, Ghana: University of Ghana.Google Scholar
van Dijk, E., Wilke, H., Wilke, M., & Metman, L. (1999). What information do we use in social dilemmas? Environmental uncertainty and the employment of coordination rules. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 109–135. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1998.1366 Google Scholar
Woodman, G. R. (1963). The acquisition of family land in Ghana. Journal of African Law, 7, 136–151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021855300001984 Google Scholar
Zahan, D. (1967). The Mossi kingdoms. In Forde, D. & Kaberry, P. M. (Eds.), West African kingdoms in the 19th century (pp. 152–178). International African Institute. London, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Acedo-Carmona and Gomila supplementary material

Tables S1-S18

Download Acedo-Carmona and Gomila supplementary material(File)
File 434.7 KB