Promoting Cooperation in Social Dilemmas via Fairness Norms and Group Goals

Pro-environmental behavior as a signal of cooperativeness: Evidence from a social dilemma experiment (post-print)

10.31234/osf.io/f3esj ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Cameron Brick

Keyword(s):

Social Status ◽

Environmental Behavior ◽

Social Dilemmas ◽

Social Dilemma ◽

Personal Characteristics ◽

Environmental Behaviors ◽

Group Goals ◽

Cooperation Partners ◽

Social Signaling

Pro-environmental behavior has social signaling value. Previous research suggests that enacting pro-environmental behaviors can signal certain personal characteristics, such as social status and trustworthiness, to others. Using an incentivized experiment, we show that people known to behave pro-environmentally are expected to be more cooperative, are preferred as cooperation partners, and elicit more cooperation from others. The presence of pro-environmental individuals may thus motivate others to exert more effort towards reaching cooperative goals, even in situations where individual and group goals are at odds (i.e., social dilemmas). However, people who behaved pro-environmentally were actually no more cooperative than those performing fewer pro-environmental behaviors.

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Working Hard to Achieve Self-Defining Group Goals: A Social Identity Analysis

Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie ◽

10.1024//0044-3514.31.4.191 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 191-203 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Kelly S. Fielding ◽

Michael A. Hogg

Keyword(s):

Social Identity ◽

Group Identification ◽

Group Norms ◽

Identity Threat ◽

Traditional Research ◽

Identity Model ◽

Group Goals ◽

And Performance ◽

Substantial Effort

Summary: A social identity model of effort exertion in groups is presented. In contrast to most traditional research on productivity and performance motivation, the model is assumed to apply to groups of all sizes and nature, and to all membership contingent norms that specify group behaviors and goals. It is proposed that group identification renders behavior group-normative and encourages people to behave in line with group norms. The effect should be strengthened among people who most need consensual identity validation from fellow members, and in intergroup contexts where there is inescapable identity threat from an outgroup. Together these processes should encourage people to exert substantial effort on behalf of their group.

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