Most people are willing to cooperate with strangers but underestimate the cooperative spirit of their fellow human beings, according to a study by a German research team.
This phenomenon is especially pronounced in Germany, according to the study, which was published in Science journal on Thursday.
The Bonn-Frankfurt research team stress that cooperation is a fundamental prerequisite for social wellbeing. They said many challenges could only be overcome if people were willing to contribute to the common good beyond their own self-interest.
The study is based on behavioral science experiments involving more than 100,000 people from 125 representative country samples, according to the University of Bonn. It is said to be the first study in the world to examine human cooperation on a globally representative basis.
The same study was conducted around the world: each participant was paired with an unknown person from their own country and asked to choose between two options. The "do not cooperate" option yielded a guaranteed return of $100, while the "cooperate" option yielded only $70.
