Passing It Along: Experiments on Creating the Negative Externalities of Climate Change

Ponte, Alessandro Del; Delton, Andrew W.; Kline, Reuben; Seltzer, Nicholas

doi:10.1086/692472

Cited by 20 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We contribute to the increasing literature on behavioral dynamics in intra-and intergenerational climate change dilemmas [54][55][56]. In line with previous research on intra-generational conflicts of climate change mitigation [10], our results indicate that individuals are willing to contribute in order to avoid the substantial risks associated with climate change.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Nudging Climate Change Mitigation: A Laboratory Experiment with Inter-Generational Public Goods

Böhm

Gürerk

Lauer

2020

Games

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To avoid the dangerous consequences of climate change, humans need to overcome two intertwined conflicts. First, they must deal with an intra-generational conflict that emerges from the allocation of costs of climate change mitigation among different actors of the current generation. Second, they face an inter-generational conflict that stems from the higher costs for long-term mitigation measures, particularly helping future generations, compared to the short-term actions aimed at adapting to the immediate effects of climate change, benefiting mostly the current generation. We devise a novel game to study this multi-level conflict and investigate individuals’ behavior in a lab experiment. We find that, although individuals reach sufficient cooperation levels to avoid adverse consequences for their own generation, they contribute more to cheaper short-term than to costlier long-term measures, to the detriment of future generations. Simple “nudge” interventions, however, may alter this pattern considerably. We find that changing the default contribution level to the inter-generational welfare optimum increases long-term contributions. Moreover, providing individuals with the possibility to commit themselves to inter-generational solidarity leads to an even stronger increase in long-term contributions. Nevertheless, the results also suggest that nudges alone may not be enough to induce inter-generationally optimal contributions.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Nudging Climate Change Mitigation: A Laboratory Experiment with Inter-Generational Public Goods

Böhm

Gürerk

Lauer

2020

Games

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“…Direct comparisons between MTurk and other samples have found similar patterns of behavior, including in games (Buhrmeister, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011; Horton, Rand, & Zeckhauser, 2011; Mullinix, Leeper, Druckman, & Freese, 2015). Two recent studies using games to study political questions find similar behavior whether played by MTurk workers for $1 stakes or students in the lab for $20 stakes (Andrews, Delton, & Kline, 2018; Del Ponte, Delton, Kline, & Seltzer, 2017). (Note that we also examine a national sample in Study 3 below.)…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Moral Obstinacy in Political Negotiations

Delton

DeScioli

Ryan

2019

Political Psychology

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Research in behavioral economics finds that moral considerations bear on the offers that people make and accept in negotiations. This finding is relevant for political negotiations, wherein moral concerns are manifold. However, behavioral economics has yet to incorporate a major theme from moral psychology: People differ, sometimes immensely, in which issues they perceive to be a matter of morality. We review research about the measurement and characteristics of moral convictions. We hypothesize that moral conviction leads to uncompromising bargaining strategies and failed negotiations. We test this theory in three incentivized experiments in which participants bargain over political policies with real payoffs at stake. We find that participants' moral convictions are linked with aggressive bargaining strategies, which helps explain why it is harder to forge bargains on some political issues than others. We also find substantial asymmetries between liberals and conservatives in the intensity of their moral convictions about different issues.

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“…Many approaches are useful for studying disaster politics, including public opinion research, survey experiments, and laboratory studies (e.g., Bernauer & McGrath, 2016;Myers et al, 2013). One promising approach, which we use here, uses economic games to simulate disasters (e.g., Barrett & Dannenberg, 2012;Bynum et al, 2016;Dannenberg et al, 2015;Del Ponte et al, 2017;Dreber & Nowak, 2008;Jacquet et al, 2013;Milinski et al, 2008Milinski et al, , 2016Tavoni et al, 2011). Economic games allow researchers to create carefully controlled simulations of important political and economic situations (Morton & Williams, 2010;Wilson, 2011;Woon, 2012).…”

Section: Using Economic Games To Study Disaster Preventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, although research with the dictator game and similar games confirms that people will be generous, it does not allow us to answer our question: Can people collectively make good disaster decisions when the problem is complex, affects others, and is a public good? To do this, we draw on and modify the disaster game (Andrews et al, 2018;Barrett & Dannenberg, 2012, 2014Dannenberg et al, 2015;Del Ponte et al, 2017;Milinski et al, 2008Milinski et al, , 2016.…”

Section: The Disaster Gamementioning

confidence: 99%

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Is a Rational Politics of Disaster Possible? Making Useful Decisions for Others in an Experimental Disaster Game

2021

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Disaster responses are political. But can citizens make useful disaster decisions? Potential obstacles are that such decisions are complex, involve public goods, and often affect other people. Theories of political decision-making disagree on whether these problems can be overcome. We used experimental economic games that simulate disaster to test whether people are willing and able to prevent disasters for others. Groups of players face a complex task in which options that might help vary in their riskiness. Importantly, although all options are reasonable, which option is most useful depends on the experimental condition. We find that players will pay to help, can identify which option is most useful across experimental conditions, and will pay to learn how best to help. Thus, players were able to make useful and costly decisions to prevent others from experiencing disaster. This suggests that, in at least some situations, citizens may be able to make good disaster decisions.

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Passing It Along: Experiments on Creating the Negative Externalities of Climate Change

Cited by 20 publications

References 9 publications

Nudging Climate Change Mitigation: A Laboratory Experiment with Inter-Generational Public Goods

Nudging Climate Change Mitigation: A Laboratory Experiment with Inter-Generational Public Goods

Moral Obstinacy in Political Negotiations

Is a Rational Politics of Disaster Possible? Making Useful Decisions for Others in an Experimental Disaster Game

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