IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/psydev/v34y2022i1p25-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Abundance Causes Greed in Appropriation from Common Resources

Author

Listed:
  • Rob Nelissen

Abstract

Three experiments investigated the possibility that greed is not just a consequence of scarcity but may also result from abundance of common resources. It was predicted that abundance causes greed not through increasing competition but because it reduces social concerns for the outcomes of others, resulting in resource waste. Consistent with these predictions, we found that people take and waste more from common resources if these resources are more—rather than less—abundant. These findings were robust to different types of resources (chocolates and money). Implications of these findings for attempts at sustainable resource use are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Rob Nelissen, 2022. "Abundance Causes Greed in Appropriation from Common Resources," Psychology and Developing Societies, , vol. 34(1), pages 25-44, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:psydev:v:34:y:2022:i:1:p:25-44
    DOI: 10.1177/09713336221080624
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09713336221080624
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09713336221080624?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph Henrich, 2001. "In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 73-78, May.
    2. Grossman, Herschel I. & Mendoza, Juan, 2003. "Scarcity and appropriative competition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 747-758, November.
    3. Samuel Bowles & Robert Boyd & Colin Camerer & Ernst Fehr & Herbert Gintis & Joseph Henrich & Richard McElreath, 2001. "In search of homo economicus: Experiments in 15 small-scale societies," Artefactual Field Experiments 00068, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Sarah F. Brosnan & Frans B. M. de Waal, 2003. "Monkeys reject unequal pay," Nature, Nature, vol. 425(6955), pages 297-299, September.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "The nature of human altruism," Nature, Nature, vol. 425(6960), pages 785-791, October.
    6. Philip M. Fernbach & Christina Kan & John G. Lynch Jr., 2015. "Squeezed: Coping with Constraint through Efficiency and Prioritization," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(5), pages 1204-1227.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Xiaofeng Wang & Xiaojie Chen & Long Wang, 2020. "Evolution of egalitarian social norm by resource management," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Dietrich, Stephan & Beekman, Gonne & Nillesen, Eleonora, 2018. "Market integration and pro-social behaviour in rural Liberia," MERIT Working Papers 2018-010, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    3. Dan Ariely & Nina Mazar, 2006. "Dishonesty in everyday life and its policy implications," Working Papers 06-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    4. Shanshan Zhen & Rongjun Yu, 2016. "Tend to Compare and Tend to Be Fair: The Relationship between Social Comparison Sensitivity and Justice Sensitivity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-17, May.
    5. Eugen Dimant, 2020. "Hate Trumps Love: The Impact of Political Polarization on Social Preferences," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 029, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    6. Jang, Chaning & Lynham, John, 2015. "Where do social preferences come from?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 25-28.
    7. Ekström, Mathias, 2017. "Seasonal Social Preferences," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 4/2017, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    8. DeAngelo, Gregory & Brosnan, Sarah F., 2013. "The importance of risk tolerance and knowledge when considering the evolution of inequity responses across the primates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 105-112.
    9. Ekström, Mathias, 2017. "Seasonal Social Preferences," Working Paper Series 1159, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    10. Gunnar Brandt & Agostino Merico & Björn Vollan & Achim Schlüter, 2012. "Human Adaptive Behavior in Common Pool Resource Systems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-9, December.
    11. Pfaff, Alexander & Vélez, Maria Alejandra & Ramos, Pablo Andres & Molina, Adriana, 2015. "Framed field experiment on resource scarcity & extraction: Path-dependent generosity within sequential water appropriation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 416-429.
    12. Borghans, J.A.M. & Borghans, L. & ter Weel, B.J., 2005. "Is there a link between economic outcomes and genetic evolution? Cross-country evidence from the major histocompatibility complex," ROA Research Memorandum 10E, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    13. Bruno S. Frey & Margit Osterloh, "undated". "Yes, Managers Should be Paid Like Bureaucrats," IEW - Working Papers 187, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    14. Gautam Bose & Lorraine Ivancic & Evgenia Dechter, 2014. "Conforming to Group Norms: An Experimental Study," Discussion Papers 2014-21, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    15. Gowdy, John M., 2008. "Behavioral economics and climate change policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 632-644, December.
    16. Hoffmann, Robert & Tee, Jin-Yee, 2006. "Adolescent-adult interactions and culture in the ultimatum game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 98-116, February.
    17. Stefania Collodi & Maria Fiorenza & Andrea Guazzini & Mirko Duradoni, 2020. "How Reputation Systems Change the Psychological Antecedents of Fairness in Virtual Environments," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, August.
    18. Moreno-Garrido, Luis José Blas, 2013. "Relative Injustice Aversion," QM&ET Working Papers 13-4, University of Alicante, D. Quantitative Methods and Economic Theory, revised 27 Jul 2015.
    19. Christian Cordes & Wolfram Elsner & Claudius Graebner & Torsten Heinrich & Joshua Henkel & Henning Schwardt & Georg Schwesinger & Tong-Yaa Su, 2021. "The collapse of cooperation: the endogeneity of institutional break-up and its asymmetry with emergence," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 1291-1315, September.
    20. Felix Kölle & Simone Quercia & Egon Tripodi, 2023. "Social Preferences under the Shadow of the Future," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 406, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.

    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:sae:psydev:v:34:y:2022:i:1:p:25-44. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.