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Humans rely on one another for protection against outside danger (De Dreu & Gross, 2019; Tomasello, 2019), for personal meaning (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009; Ortner, 1998), and for advancing technological innovation and cultural evolution (De Dreu, Nijstad, Bechtoldt, & Baas, 2011; Henrich, 2016). However, despite the benefits afforded by living in social groups and cooperating with others, these benefits can come at a cost to the individuals within the group. Oftentimes, the actions most beneficial to the group and the actions most beneficial to the individuals within that group are incongruent, and cooperative behavior requires an individual to forego a personal benefit for the sake of their social unit. It would be more personally profitable to neglect the bill after dining out, to free-ride on public transport, and to claim ownership over a valuable idea without giving proper credit. However, if everyone adhered to this self-interested ethos society could not function, and no one would be allowed to enjoy the benefits of the public goods that civilization provides.

Indeed, society could not function if it were not for the fact that, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau put it (1762/1993):“each of us puts his person... under the supreme direction of the general will”(p. 196). While this statement is true in an ideal world, the danger that a customer does not pay their bill after dining out, that a passenger freely partakes in public transport, or that a colleague claims another’s ideas as their own, is always a possibility. Cooperating within the bounds of a group’s customs goes hand in hand with the risk that other group members act with purely self-interested motives, exploiting the …