IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v57y1988i3p275-279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding and cooperation in social dilemmas

Author

Listed:
  • David Goetze
  • John Orbell

Abstract

Cooperation in public dilemmas (and in externality dilemmas generally) is sometimes explained as a function of players' experience with the game: The more experience, the less cooperation. Experience, however, can produce both knowledge about how others will play the game (in particular, that they will defect) and improved understanding of the incentive structure of the game. We report data from two different experiments showing at best only a slight relationship between understanding the incentive structure of the game and cooperation. Inferences from the ‘experience’ finding that cooperation is based on misunderstanding of game incentives, therefore, seem misplaced. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1988

Suggested Citation

  • David Goetze & John Orbell, 1988. "Understanding and cooperation in social dilemmas," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 275-279, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:57:y:1988:i:3:p:275-279
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00124810
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00124810
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00124810?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oliver Kim & Mark Walker, 1984. "The free rider problem: Experimental evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 3-24, January.
    2. R. Isaac & James Walker & Susan Thomas, 1984. "Divergent evidence on free riding: An experimental examination of possible explanations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 113-149, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ralph-C. Bayer & Elke Renner & Rupert Sausgruber, 2013. "Confusion and learning in the voluntary contributions game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(4), pages 478-496, December.
    2. Marco A. Janssen & Elinor Ostrom, 2008. "TURFS in the lab: Institutional Innovation in Real-Time Dynamic Spatial Commons," Rationality and Society, , vol. 20(4), pages 371-397, November.
    3. Sánchez, Isabel, 1991. "La provision voluntaria de bienes publicos: Resultados Experimentales," DE - Documentos de Trabajo. Economía. DE 3000, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    4. Peregrine Schwartz-Shea & Randy T. Simmons, 1991. "Egoism, Parochialism, and Universalism," Rationality and Society, , vol. 3(1), pages 106-132, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ambrus, Attila & Pathak, Parag A., 2011. "Cooperation over finite horizons: A theory and experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 500-512.
    2. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2007. "On Modeling Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(2), pages 311-332, March.
    3. Masel, Joanna, 2007. "A Bayesian model of quasi-magical thinking can explain observed cooperation in the public good game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 216-231, October.
    4. Cardella, Eric & Depew, Briggs, 2016. "Testing for the Ratchet Effect: Evidence from a Real-Effort Work Task," IZA Discussion Papers 9981, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Ledyard, John O., "undated". "Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research," Working Papers 861, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    6. Chaudhuri, Ananish & Maitra, Pushkar & Graziano, Sara, 2003. "A Dynamic Analysis of the Evolution of Conventions in a Public Goods Experiment with Intergenerational Advice," Working Papers 152, Department of Economics, The University of Auckland.
    7. Jasmina Arifovic & John Ledyard, 2012. "Individual Evolutionary Learning, Other-regarding Preferences, and the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism," Discussion Papers wp12-01, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    8. Asano, Masanari & Basieva, Irina & Khrennikov, Andrei & Ohya, Masanori & Tanaka, Yoshiharu, 2012. "Quantum-like dynamics of decision-making," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(5), pages 2083-2099.
    9. Daniele Nosenzo & Simone Quercia & Martin Sefton, 2015. "Cooperation in small groups: the effect of group size," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(1), pages 4-14, March.
    10. Alexis Belianin & Marco Novarese, 2005. "Trust, communication and equlibrium behaviour in public goods," Experimental 0506001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kristian López Vargas & Alejandro Lugon, 2020. "Experimentos clásicos de economía. Evidencia de laboratorio de Perú," Documentos de Trabajo / Working Papers 2020-488, Departamento de Economía - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
    12. Arifovic, Jasmina & Ledyard, John, 2012. "Individual evolutionary learning, other-regarding preferences, and the voluntary contributions mechanism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 808-823.
    13. Thomas McCaleb & Richard Wagner, 1985. "The experimental search for free riders: Some reflections and observations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 479-490, January.
    14. Kurt A. Ackermann & Ryan O. Murphy, 2019. "Explaining Cooperative Behavior in Public Goods Games: How Preferences and Beliefs Affect Contribution Levels," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-34, March.
    15. Lata Gangadharan & Veronika Nemes, 2005. "Impact of Risk and Uncertainty in the Provision of Local and Global Environmental Goods : An Experimental Analysis," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 956, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Tatsuyoshi, S. & Nakamura, H., 1995. "The 'Spite' Dilema in Voluntary Contribution Mechanism Experiments," ISER Discussion Paper 0370, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    17. Cato, Susumu & Ebina, Takeshi, 2014. "Inequality aversion in long-term contracts," MPRA Paper 59893, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Runge, C. Ford, 1985. "The Assurance Problem And Conjectural Variation In Public Goods Provision," Staff Papers 13548, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    19. Lars P. Feld & Bruno S. Frey, 2002. "Trust breeds trust: How taxpayers are treated," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 87-99, July.
    20. Seely, Beth & Van Huyck, John & Battalio, Raymond, 2005. "Credible assignments can improve efficiency in laboratory public goods games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1437-1455, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:57:y:1988:i:3:p:275-279. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.