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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]
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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 

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