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An integrated model combining multi-layer cradle to cradle approach: cost effective, technically sound, and bioenvironmental cutting-edge agricultural waste assessment technologies are lacking; to address this gap, the study proposes circular agriculture model (CAM) to support an integrated, bio-based, sustainable and broadly applicable rural society. CAM is an innovative, quasi-public product, bio-commodity, and concept. This study uses survey data on the Chinese province of Hubei to consider the returning of crop residues to the soil and manure for compost or biogas production (first-generation biorefinery). It explores farmers' environmental understanding and their willingness to pay (WTP) under a “polluter pays” principle. Factors, including education, infrastructure, trust in family-neighbors, and environmental attitudes, have a significant effect on WTP. Moreover, income, sustainability-recycling behavior, environmental perception, perceived usefulness-easiness, and trust-in-government positively affect farmers’ WTP, whereas environmental attitude, intention, and selfishness have a negative effect. It, therefore, calls for the integration and cooperation of private, government, business, R&D and public welfare to value the combined rural traditions, religion, philosophy and belief, socio-psychological and altruistic values of local communities, which are essential for building trust and providing ecological security, tech spill-over, thereby indirectly helping farmers to restore their livelihoods.

Symbiotic relationships are widespread in nature, but the mechanisms maintaining these relationships remain to be elucidated because symbiosis incurs a maintenance cost to each participant, which lowers its reproductive rate. In host-parasite relationships, parasites are known to manipulate the host's behavior selfishly, and there is an arms race between them. Selfish manipulations also occur in symbiosis, but the effects of selfish manipulations on symbiosis are not fully understood. Here, we show that an ant-associated aphid manipulates attending ants to receive stronger protection. Aphid honeydew regurgitated by ants contains dopamine (DA). The ants showed low aggressiveness before contact with the aphids, but it rose after contact. Administration of DA to the ants increased ant aggressiveness as the concentration increased, while an antagonist of DA inhibited this effect. The other 3 amines showed no effect on aggressiveness. A previous study showed that attending ants selfishly manipulate aphids by increasing the reproductive rate of green morph to obtain high-quality honeydew. These results suggest that mutual selfish manipulation benefits both participants and is likely to strengthen symbiosis. The selfishness of each participant may contribute to sustaining this symbiosis because their selfishness increases their long-term fitness.

The hypothesis of strategic motives postulates that offering fairly in the Ultimatum Game (UG) is to avoid rejection and receive money. In this fMRI study, we used a modified UG to elucidate how proposers reached decisions of offering fairly and to what extent they considered offering selfishly with different stakes. We had proposers choose between a fair and a selfish offer with different degrees of selfishness and stake sizes. Proposers were less likely and spent more time choosing the fair offer over a slightly-selfish offer than a very selfish offer independent of stakes. Such choices evoked greater activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortices that typically involve in allocation of cognitive control for cost/benefit decision making. Choosing a fair offer in higher stakes evoked greater activation in the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACCg) and the areas that previously have been implicated in reward and theory of mind. Furthermore, choosing a slightly selfish offer over a fair offer evoked greater activation in the anterior cingulate sulcus, ACCg, ventral tegmental area (or substantia nigra) and anterior insular cortex signalling the higher gain and implying higher rejection risk. In conclusion, our findings favoured the hypothesis that proposers offer fairly based on the strategic motives.

Adults prefer fair processes (“procedural justice”) over equal outcomes (“distributive justice”). This preference impacts their judgments of others in addition to their willingness to cooperate, raising questions about whether similar preferences drive judgments and behavior in children. The present study examines the development of this preference for procedural justice by testing children’s attitudes towards procedural justice using a resource allocation task in both first- and third-party contexts, and in contexts in which the procedurally just process does versus does not create distributional injustice. Results from children 4 to 8 years of age demonstrate that children robustly attend to and prefer procedural justice over distributive justice. However, younger children are less likely to prefer methods that are procedurally just or that create distributively just outcomes in first-party contexts, when distributive injustice might favor them. Results suggest an interplay between abstract justice concerns and the emerging ability to override selfishness.

Decisions are often governed by rules on adequate social behaviour. Recent research suggests that the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) is involved in the implementation of internal fairness rules (norms), by controlling the impulse to act selfishly. A drawback of these studies is that the assumed norms and impulses have to be deduced from behaviour and that norm-following and pro-sociality are indistinguishable. Here, we directly confronted participants with a rule that demanded to make advantageous or disadvantageous monetary allocations for themselves or another person. To disentangle its functional role in rule-following and pro-sociality, we divergently manipulated the rLPFC by applying cathodal or anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Cathodal tDCS increased participants’ rule-following, even of rules that demanded to lose money or hurt another person financially. In contrast, anodal tDCS led participants to specifically violate more often those rules that were at odds with what participants chose freely. Brain stimulation over the rLPFC thus did not simply increase or decrease selfishness. Instead, by disentangling rule-following and pro-sociality, our results point to a broader role of the rLPFC in integrating the costs and benefits of rules in order to align decisions with internal goals, ultimately enabling to flexibly adapt social behaviour.

Cooperation is a central mechanism for evolution. It consists of an individual paying a cost in order to benefit another individual. However, natural selection describes individuals as being selfish and in competition among themselves. Therefore explaining the origin of cooperation within the context of natural selection is a problem that has been puzzling researchers for a long time. In the paradigmatic case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD), several schemes for the evolution of cooperation have been proposed. Here we introduce an extension of the Replicator Equation (RE), called the Optimal Replicator Equation (ORE), motivated by the fact that evolution acts not only at the level of individuals of a population, but also among competing populations, and we show that this new model for natural selection directly leads to a simple and natural rule for the emergence of cooperation in the most basic version of the PD. Contrary to common belief, our results reveal that cooperation can emerge among selfish individuals because of selfishness itself: if the final reward for being part of a society is sufficiently appealing, players spontaneously decide to cooperate.

The tension between selfishness and prosocial behavior is crucial to understanding many social interactions and conflicts. Currently little is known how to promote prosocial behaviors, especially in naturally occurring relationships outside the laboratory. We examined whether a psychological micro-intervention would promote prosocial behaviors in couples. Across two studies, we randomized dyads of couples to a micro-intervention (15 min), which increased prosocial behaviors by 28% and decreased selfish behaviors by 35% a week later in behavioral games in a dose–response manner. Using event sampling methodology, we further observed an increase in prosocial behaviors across one week that was most pronounced in participants who received the intervention. These results from the laboratory and everyday life are important for researchers interested in prosocial behavior and selfishness and have practical relevance for group interactions.

A common assumption is that good leaders are driven by a power motive that motivates them to influence others. However, leaders need to restrain themselves in social dilemmas where cooperation maximizes collective outcomes. We theorize that in social dilemmas, a desire for positive relationships (affiliation motive) is more beneficial than a power motive because it draws attention away from short-term self-interest towards understanding others. In a game of Settlers of Catan in the laboratory, we find that a functional variant of the affiliation motive relates to verbal encouragement of cooperation, to fewer occurrences of oil spills, to higher ratings of transformational leadership and, in a field survey, to fewer selfish business decisions. Furthermore, a dysfunctional variant of the power motive relates to two of three indicators of selfishness. Group members perceive selfish individuals as assuming leadership roles which indirectly relates to slightly higher ratings of transformational leadership. This pattern of evaluation may privilege men who, on average, show more selfish behaviour which can be partially attributed to their motives. Mere awareness of gender-based discrimination does not enable raters to circumvent this pattern of evaluation. This work suggests a need for interventions that increase appreciation of cooperative leaders.