Why People Don’t Want to Cooperate (Even When It Helps Them)

R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness · Jun 2, 2026 · 11m

Many systems—academic, economic, organizational—are built on the belief in rational, cooperative actors. But people often enter interactions:

• Threatened by cooperation

• Pre-committed to not cooperating

• Motivated to harm systems they view as unjust, even at personal cost

This isn’t just “bad behavior.” It’s the norm that too many theories write off as “noise.”