Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments

Abstract A social dilemma appears in the public goods problem, where the individual has to decide whether to contribute to a common resource. The total contributions to the common pool are increased by a synergy factor and evenly split among the members. The ideal outcome occurs if everyone contribu...

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Autores principales:	Lucas Wardil, Ivair R. Silva, Jafferson K. L. da Silva
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2019
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/e4433a871b3445cbbd95033e3ab84efd
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:e4433a871b3445cbbd95033e3ab84efd2021-12-02T15:09:22ZPositive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments10.1038/s41598-018-37674-52045-2322https://doaj.org/article/e4433a871b3445cbbd95033e3ab84efd2019-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37674-5https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract A social dilemma appears in the public goods problem, where the individual has to decide whether to contribute to a common resource. The total contributions to the common pool are increased by a synergy factor and evenly split among the members. The ideal outcome occurs if everyone contributes the maximum amount. However, regardless of what the others do, each individual is better off by contributing nothing. Yet, cooperation is largely observed in human society. Many mechanisms have been shown to promote cooperation in humans, alleviating, or even resolving, the social dilemma. One class of mechanisms that is under-explored is the spillover of experiences obtained from different environments. There is some evidence that positive experiences promote cooperative behaviour. Here, we address the question of how experiencing positive cooperative interactions – obtained in an environment where cooperation yields high returns – affects the level of cooperation in social dilemma interactions. In a laboratory experiment, participants played repeated public goods games (PGGs) with rounds alternating between positive interactions and social dilemma interactions. We show that, instead of promoting pro-social behaviour, the presence of positive interactions lowered the level of cooperation in the social dilemma interactions. Our analysis suggests that the high return obtained in the positive interactions sets a reference point that accentuates participants’ perceptions that contributing in social dilemma interactions is a bad investment.Lucas WardilIvair R. SilvaJafferson K. L. da SilvaNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Lucas Wardil Ivair R. Silva Jafferson K. L. da Silva Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments
description	Abstract A social dilemma appears in the public goods problem, where the individual has to decide whether to contribute to a common resource. The total contributions to the common pool are increased by a synergy factor and evenly split among the members. The ideal outcome occurs if everyone contributes the maximum amount. However, regardless of what the others do, each individual is better off by contributing nothing. Yet, cooperation is largely observed in human society. Many mechanisms have been shown to promote cooperation in humans, alleviating, or even resolving, the social dilemma. One class of mechanisms that is under-explored is the spillover of experiences obtained from different environments. There is some evidence that positive experiences promote cooperative behaviour. Here, we address the question of how experiencing positive cooperative interactions – obtained in an environment where cooperation yields high returns – affects the level of cooperation in social dilemma interactions. In a laboratory experiment, participants played repeated public goods games (PGGs) with rounds alternating between positive interactions and social dilemma interactions. We show that, instead of promoting pro-social behaviour, the presence of positive interactions lowered the level of cooperation in the social dilemma interactions. Our analysis suggests that the high return obtained in the positive interactions sets a reference point that accentuates participants’ perceptions that contributing in social dilemma interactions is a bad investment.
format	article
author	Lucas Wardil Ivair R. Silva Jafferson K. L. da Silva
author_facet	Lucas Wardil Ivair R. Silva Jafferson K. L. da Silva
author_sort	Lucas Wardil
title	Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments
title_short	Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments
title_full	Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments
title_fullStr	Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments
title_full_unstemmed	Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments
title_sort	positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/e4433a871b3445cbbd95033e3ab84efd
work_keys_str_mv	AT lucaswardil positiveinteractionsmaydecreasecooperationinsocialdilemmaexperiments AT ivairrsilva positiveinteractionsmaydecreasecooperationinsocialdilemmaexperiments AT jaffersonkldasilva positiveinteractionsmaydecreasecooperationinsocialdilemmaexperiments
_version_	1718387847826767872

Positive interactions may decrease cooperation in social dilemma experiments

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