Addiction and Altruism
Addiction and Altruism
This chapter, which distinguishes between altruism and social cooperation in terms of repeated games, discusses altruism as really social cooperation over a wide temporal extent. It defines more clearly between self-control and altruism, and illustrates that social discounting and delay discounting may be compared experimentally. The chapter shows that a crucial variable distinguishing self-control from social cooperation is the probability of reciprocation of cooperation and defection. In addition to the standard behavioral treatments for addiction, it also suggests that addicts need to be trained in organizing their behavior into wide temporal patterns—effectively making friends with their own future selves.
Keywords: altruism, social cooperation, self-control, social discounting, delay discounting, addiction, cooperation, behavioral treatments
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