Subject-specific performance information can worsen the tragedy of the commons: Experimental evidence

Villena, Mauricio G.; Zecchetto, Franco

doi:10.1016/j.joep.2010.12.007

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The participants' decisions might be influenced by their expectations of what others will do. In various previous studies, providing more information so that free-riding can be observed reduced cooperation (Nikiforakis 2010, Villena andZecchetto 2010). When we reduced the visibility of others, we expected this would take longer to detect free-riding behavior.…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…When more information about the actions of others is available to participants, we see lower levels of cooperation in most studies, since more details reveal the existence of free riders (Nikiforakis 2010, Villena andZecchetto 2010). When the information is focused on the intentions of conditional cooperators in the group, we see that more information leads to higher levels of cooperation (Chaudhuri andPaichayontvijit 2006, de Oliveira et al 2009).…”

Section: Past Experiments On Common Pool Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 90%

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The Role of Information in Governing the Commons: Experimental Results

Janssen¹

2013

E&S

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ABSTRACT. The structure and dynamics of ecosystems can affect the information available to resource users on the state of the common resource and the actions of other resource users. We present results from laboratory experiments that showed that the availability of information about the actions of other participants affected the level of cooperation. Since most participants in commons dilemmas can be classified as conditional cooperators, not having full information about the actions of others may affect their decisions. When participants had more information about others, there was a more rapid reduction of the resource in the first round of the experiment. When communication was allowed, limiting the information available made it harder to develop effective institutional arrangements. When communication was not allowed, there was a more rapid decline of performance in groups where information was limited. In sum, the results suggest that making information available to others can have an important impact on the conditional cooperation and the effectiveness of communication.

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Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Past Experiments On Common Pool Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 90%

The Role of Information in Governing the Commons: Experimental Results

Janssen¹

2013

E&S

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“…This enables us to look at fundamental drivers of decision making in typical conditions that many small scale irrigation communities face. Results from earlier social dilemma -not irrigation dilemma -experiments suggest that limiting the information will affect the experimental outcomes [12,13,14]. Since the majority of participants act in experiments as if they are conditional cooperators, information availability affects the expectations participants have and therefore their tendency to cooperate [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of information in a behavioral irrigation experiment

Janssen

Anderies

Legáz

et al. 2015

Water Resources and Economics

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Abstract:When governing shared resources, the level and quality of information available to resource users on the actions of others and the state of the environment may have a critical effect on the performance of groups. In the work presented here, we find that lower availability of information does not affect the average performance of the group in terms of their capacity to provide public infrastructure and govern resource use, but it affects the distribution of earnings and the ability to cope with disturbances. We performed behavioral experiments that mimic irrigation dilemmas in which participants need to maintain infrastructure function in order to generate revenue from the use of water. In the experimental design, there is an upstream-downstream asymmetry of access to water that may lead to unequal access to water. We find that inequality of investment in irrigation infrastructure and water appropriation across players is more pronounced in experiments where resource users have limited information about the actions of others. We also find that inequality is linked to the ability of groups to cope with disturbances. Hence a reduced level of information indirectly reduces the adaptive capacity of groups.

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“…Observed discrepancies between one's own and the group's behavior could lead to a shift in subjective transformation functions. This would go beyond the mere imitation of successful others (Apesteguia, Huck, & Oechssler, 2007;Burton-Chellew & West, 2013;Garcia-Ratamero, Takezawa, Woike, & Gigerenzer, 2013;Villena & Zecchetto, 2011). Such future research might further examine to which degree the observation of conditional cooperation (Charness & Rabin, 2002;Fischbacher et al, 2001;Fischbacher & Gächter, 2010) can be explained by a re-interpretation of the interdependence structure and how feedback impacts those with strong and weak tendencies to reciprocate.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rivals without a cause? Relative performance feedback creates destructive competition despite aligned incentives

Woike

Hafenbrädl

2020

Behavioral Decision Making

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Whether people compete or cooperate with each other has consequences for their own performance and that of organizations. To explain why people compete or cooperate, previous research has focused on two main factors: situational outcome structures and personality types. Here, we propose that—above and beyond these two factors—situational cues, such as the format in which people receive feedback, strongly affect whether they act competitively, cooperatively, or individualistically. Results of a laboratory experiment support our theorizing: After receiving ranking feedback, both students and experienced managers treated group situations with cooperative outcome structures as competitive and were in consequence willing to forgo guaranteed financial gains to pursue a—financially irrelevant—better rank. Conversely, in dilemma situations, feedback based on the joint group outcome led to more cooperation than ranking feedback. Our study contributes to research on competition, cooperation, interdependence theory, forced ranking, and the design of information environments.

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Subject-specific performance information can worsen the tragedy of the commons: Experimental evidence

Abstract: The main aim of this article is to investigate the behavioral consequences of the provision of subject-specific information

Cited by 12 publications

References 32 publications

The Role of Information in Governing the Commons: Experimental Results

The Role of Information in Governing the Commons: Experimental Results

The effect of information in a behavioral irrigation experiment

Rivals without a cause? Relative performance feedback creates destructive competition despite aligned incentives

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