Strategic thinking in public goods games with teams (original) (raw)
Related papers
2021
The strategy method is often used in public goods games to measure individuals’ willingness to cooperate depending on the level of cooperation by others (conditional cooperation). However, while the strategy method is informative, it risks being suggestive and inducing elevated levels of conditional cooperation that are not motivated by concerns for fairness, especially in uncertain or confused participants. Here we make 845 participants complete the strategy method two times, once with human and once with computerized groupmates. Cooperation with computers cannot rationally be motivated by concerns for fairness. Worryingly, 69% of participants conditionally cooperated with computers, whereas only 7% conditionally cooperated with humans while not cooperating with computers. Overall, 83% of participants cooperated with computers, contributing 89% as much as towards humans. Results from games with computers present a serious problem for measuring social behaviors.
Games
The strategy method is often used in public goods games to measure an individual’s willingness to cooperate depending on the level of cooperation by their groupmates (conditional cooperation). However, while the strategy method is informative, it risks conflating confusion with a desire for fair outcomes, and its presentation may risk inducing elevated levels of conditional cooperation. This problem was highlighted by two previous studies which found that the strategy method could also detect equivalent levels of cooperation even among those grouped with computerized groupmates, indicative of confusion or irrational responses. However, these studies did not use large samples (n = 40 or 72) and only made participants complete the strategy method one time, with computerized groupmates, preventing within-participant comparisons. Here, in contrast, 845 participants completed the strategy method two times, once with human and once with computerized groupmates. Our research aims were twof...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010
The results of numerous economic games suggest that humans behave more cooperatively than would be expected if they were maximizing selfish interests. It has been argued that this is because individuals gain satisfaction from the success of others, and that such prosocial preferences require a novel evolutionary explanation. However, in previous games, imperfect behavior would automatically lead to an increase in cooperation, making it impossible to decouple any form of mistake or error from prosocial cooperative decisions. Here we empirically test between these alternatives by decoupling imperfect behavior from prosocial preferences in modified versions of the public goods game, in which individuals would maximize their selfish gain by completely (100%) cooperating. We found that, although this led to higher levels of cooperation, it did not lead to full cooperation, and individuals still perceived their group mates as competitors. This is inconsistent with either selfish or prosocial preferences, suggesting that the most parsimonious explanation is imperfect behavior triggered by psychological drives that can prevent both complete defection and complete cooperation. More generally, our results illustrate the caution that must be exercised when interpreting the evolutionary implications of economic experiments, especially the absolute level of cooperation in a particular treatment. altruism | economic games | inclusive fitness | psychological drives | utility T here is a large empirical literature suggesting that when humans play anonymous one-shot economic games, they cooperate more than would be expected if they were purely self-interested (1-4). A common example comes from the public goods game, in which individuals are arranged in groups of N members, and each is given some quantity of monetary units that they can contribute to a public project. The contributions of all members are summed and multiplied by b (where b > 1), then equally divided between the group members. As long as n > b, an individual will always gain a higher economic reward in the short term by restricting or withholding their own contributions to the public project, while still benefiting from the contributions made by others. Although this favors zero contribution, individuals still contribute to the public project, and although they contribute less over time, ≈10% of individuals continue to contribute in the long run (1).
Team competition and the public goods game
Economics Letters, 2007
We experimentally investigate the effect of intergroup competitionwith/out monetary incentives to winon intragroup cooperation. In one-shot games, competition increases cooperation with/out incentives. In finitely repeated games, cooperation is sustained with incentives. Cooperation decreases (increases) in response to wins (losses).
Is cooperation instinctive? Evidence from the response times in a Public Goods Game
2012
We use data on response times from a public goods experiment to test the hypothesis that cooperation is instinctive, under the assumption that the longer the time of the decision, the less instinctive the choice. Results seem to support the hypothesis that cooperation is instinctive, while defection is 'rational'. Moreover, as the experiment is designed also to assess the effects of the consumption of relational goods on cooperation, we are also able to state that some types of relational goods, like team working, produce additional cooperation, but make it less spontaneous. We also detect that females seem to behave less instinctively than males.
Inter-groups information exchange drives Cooperation in the Public Goods Game
2014
In this manuscript we explore the onset of cooperative traits in the Public Goods game. This well-known game involves N-agent interactions and thus reproduces a large number of social scenarios in which cooperation appears to be essential. Many studies have recently addressed how the structure of the interaction patterns influences the emergence of cooperation. Here we study how information about the payoffs collected by each individual in the different groups it participates in, influences the decisions made by its group partners. Our results point out that cross-information plays a fundamental and positive role in the evolution of cooperation for different versions of the Public Goods game and different interaction structures.
PLoS ONE, 2021
Many practitioners as well as researchers explore promoting environmentally conscious behavior in the context of public goods systems. Numerous experimental studies revealed various types of incentives to increase cooperation on public goods. There is ample evidence that monetary and non-monetary incentives, such as donations, have a positive effect on cooperation in public goods games that exceeds fully rational and optimal economic decision making. Despite an accumulation of these studies, in the typical setting of these experiments participants decide on an allocation of resources to a public pool, but they never exert actual effort. However, in reality, we often observe that players’ real effort is required in these public goods game situations. Therefore, more analysis is needed to draw conclusions for a wider set of incentive possibilities in situations similar to yet deviating from resource allocation games. Here we construct a real effort public goods game in an online exper...
Intergroup information exchange drives cooperation in the public goods game
Physical Review E, 2014
In this manuscript we explore the onset of cooperative traits in the Public Goods game. This well-known game involves N -agent interactions and thus reproduces a large number of social scenarios in which cooperation appears to be essential. Many studies have recently addressed how the structure of the interaction patterns influences the emergence of cooperation. Here we study how information about the payoffs collected by each individual in the different groups it participates in, influences the decisions made by its group partners. Our results point out that cross-information plays a fundamental and positive role in the evolution of cooperation for different versions of the Public Goods game and different interaction structures.
The strategic sophistication of conditional cooperators: Evidence from public goods games∗
2017
We develop the theory of behavioural types in social dilemma games by experimentally studying four public goods voluntary contributions games in which the incentive structures are varied. We replicate previous studies by identifying free-riders, as well as two distinct groups of conditional cooperators (strong and weak), as comprising a supermajority of participants when payoffs are linear. Strong conditional cooperators, who match contributions one-forone in the linear game, display sophisticated behaviour in games with nonlinear payoffs: they match one-for-one only when doing so improves social welfare. This mode of conditional cooperation appears to be underpinned by a sophisticated understanding and assessment of the financial incentives presented by the game.
Social diversity promotes the emergence of cooperation in public goods games
Nature, 2008
Humans often cooperate in public goods games 1-3 and situations ranging from family issues to global warming 4,5 . However, evolutionary game theory predicts 4,6 that the temptation to forgo the public good mostly wins over collective cooperative action, and this is often also seen in economic experiments 7 . Here we show how social diversity provides an escape from this apparent paradox. Up to now, individuals have been treated as equivalent in all respects 4,8 , in sharp contrast with real-life situations, where diversity is ubiquitous. We introduce social diversity by means of heterogeneous graphs and show that cooperation is promoted by the diversity associated with the number and size of the public goods game in which each individual participates and with the individual contribution to each such game. When social ties follow a scale-free distribution 9 , cooperation is enhanced whenever all individuals are expected to contribute a fixed amount irrespective of the plethora of public goods games in which they engage. Our results may help to explain the emergence of cooperation in the absence of mechanisms based on individual reputation and punishment 10-12 . Combining social diversity with reputation and punishment will provide instrumental clues on the self-organization of social communities and their economical implications.