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Cooperation in Public Good Games. Calculated or Confused?

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  • Goeschl, Timo
  • Lohse, Johannes

Abstract

Recent experiments suggest that contribution decisions in a public goods game (PGG) are more likely to be cooperative if based on intuition rather than reflection. This paper (i) reinvestigates the behavioral impact of so-called cognitive style in the PGG; and (ii) connects it with an earlier literature on the role of cognitive failure (confusion). This is motivated by the possibility that the method of time pressure, commonly used to identify cognitive style, invites confusion as a confounding factor. Two channels for such confounds are identified and experimentally tested: A heterogeneous treatment effect of time pressure depending on subject's confusion status and a direct impact of time pressure on subjects' likelihood of being confused. Our reinvestigation on the behavioral impact of time pressure confirms that cognitive style matters, but that deliberation rather than intuition drives cooperation. The confounding effect of confusion is not found to be direct, but to operate through a heterogeneous treatment effect. Time pressure selectively reduces average contributions among those subjects whose contributions can confidently be interpreted as cooperative rather than confused.

Suggested Citation

  • Goeschl, Timo & Lohse, Johannes, 2016. "Cooperation in Public Good Games. Calculated or Confused?," Working Papers 0626, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:awi:wpaper:0626
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    2. Diederich, Johannes & Goeschl, Timo & Waichman, Israel, 2023. "Self-nudging is more ethical, but less efficient than social nudging," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277679, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Strømland, Eirik & Torsvik, Gaute, 2019. "Intuitive Prosociality: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects or False Positive?," OSF Preprints hrx2y, Center for Open Science.
    4. Peter Katuščák & Tomáš Miklánek, 2023. "What drives conditional cooperation in public good games?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(2), pages 435-467, April.
    5. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:4:p:844-897 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Anna Louisa Merkel & Johannes Lohse, 2019. "Is fairness intuitive? An experiment accounting for subjective utility differences under time pressure," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(1), pages 24-50, March.
    7. Diederich, Johannes & Goeschl, Timo & Waichman, Israel, 2022. "Self-Nudging vs. Social Nudging in Social Dilemmas: An Experiment," Working Papers 0710, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    8. Todd Larson Landes & Piers Douglas Howe & Yoshihisa Kashima, 2021. "A hierarchy of mindreading strategies in joint action participation," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(4), pages 844-897, July.

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