Factors influencing cooperation

Social motives have been conceptualized as stable individual characteristics. The assumption is that two types of persons – cooperative versus competitive personalities – exist in the world whose dispositions are so stable and their interaction so programmed by these dispositions that, they do not influence each other at the dispositional level, and they do not influence each other’s world views. Although in theory, an infinite number of social motives – sometimes referred to as social value orientations – can be distinguished, a common theoretical classification identifies four major motivational orientations (McClintock, 1972): individualism – the motivation to maximize one’s own gains; 2 competition – the motivation to maximize relative gains, the difference between one’s outcome and that of the other, 3 cooperation - the motivation to maximize joint gain; and 4 altruism – the motivation to maximize other parties’ gains. Individualism and competition motives often are referred to as pro-self motives, whereas cooperation and altruism are referred to as pro-social motives.

In the context of resource dilemmas, consistent findings demonstrate that proself individuals harvest significantly more than people with prosocial motives. Similarly, in scenarios that mirror real life social dilemmas such as traffic congestion, prosocial individuals exhibit a greater preference to commute by public transportation rather than private car, and are more concerned with collective outcomes vis a vis the environment than proself individuals.

What works – assumption provides a clear example of how social motives influence not only choice behavior but also the interpretation of behavior. Liebrand et al (1986) examined the relationship between social motives and interpretations of cooperative and competitive behavior. They found that people with individualist social motives tend to interpret behavior along the what works dimension, whereas cooperators tend to view cooperation and competition as varying on the moral dimension (what is good or bad). Moreover, prosocials view rationality in social dilemmas from the perspective of the collective (community, group level), whereas proself people may view it more from a perspective of individual rationality (egocentrically). Van Lange et al (1990) argued that if one accepts the idea that a perceiver’s own goal or predisposition affects his /her choice and also indicates the perspective (collective or individualistic) taken on rationality, it follows that attributions to intelligence should be determined by the combination of the target’s choice and the subject’s own choice. Thus, social motives may relate not only to differences in choice behavior but also to different perceptions of rationality and intelligence.

In terms of interpretation, findings suggested that cooperators were more likely than rebels to attribute cooperation to intelligence, whereas rebels were more likely than cooperators to attribute noncooperation to intelligence. The findings supported the assumption that prosocial individuals expected more cooperation from an intelligent than an unintelligent person, while competitors expected significantly more cooperative behavior from an unintelligent other than an intelligent one. Hence, social motives influence is evaluated as to how information about others is interpreted. In this experiment, people with different social motives made different interpretations of a ‘common’ dilemma. Impressions of honesty or intelligence, as well as fairness and self interest, fell in line with the might (what works) versus morality (what is good) perspective. Cooperative individuals assigned greater weight to honesty than did individualist and competitive participants, while individualists and competitors placed greater weight on intelligence than prosocial participants. Similarly, Samuelson (1993) found systematic differences between coopertors and noncooperators in the importance they assign to dimensions of fairness and self interest in resource dilemmas. Cooperators assigned greater weight to a fairness dimension, whereas noncooperators assigned greater weight to a self interest dimension.

Another dimension that may relate to social motives is culture. People from collectivist cultures – cultures that view the self as interdependent with others – behave cooperatively with members of their own group and competitively with members of an outgroup, whereas people from individualist cultures – cultures in which the self is perceived as an independent entity – focus less on the social environment and are more task oriented, focusing on their individual goals. However the relationship between culture and social motives is not as straightforward. Cultural values of individualism versus collectivism and social motives are often measured superficially of similar constructs.

Central to popular and psychological understandings of behavior is the notion that behaviors generally are more likely to be exhibited when rewarded, and less likely to be exhibited when punished. The central question in any given situation is what combination or form of rewards and sanctions will yield optimal or desirable results. A number of recent studies have offered new insights that may be applied productively to the development of better commons management techniques. In general people expect to receive more approval if they contribute more, and less approval if others contribute more. The combination of a strong group identity and group interaction results in significantly higher levels of contribution in social affairs. When subjects are strangers or from different social context such as class differences, social approval has a rather weak and insignificant positive effect on participation in collective actions. Yet, if the social distance between subjects is somewhat reduced by allowing some kind of social ties, approval incentives reduces free riding. Group identity effects act as a facilitating lubricant for social exchange. Many real world common dilemmas are related to resources that parties want to last indefinitely, a similar effect is likely to arise when a given party or parties sees an end to their interest in the common dilemmas.

Issues of power and status have long been a subject of focal interest to better understand their role in governing and influencing human behavior. The impact of power and status on the judgments people make about justifications that are offered in a common dilemma are under study. Broad acceptance of a justification can redefine fundamental understandings and rules of behavior. Members of groups with power imbalances are more likely to se the group as competitive, be motivated by individual gains, and retaliate against those who omitted them from a coalition. Power imbalance can be detrimental to group outcomes as it encourages competition and a focus on individual outcomes resulting in less integrative agreements. One of the ways to balance power is to assemble group members from the same social position in the hierarchy who have various sources of expertise that are all necessary to the functioning of the group. This way, although the group members would still have their own interests and goals, they might not be as threatened or put off by the positions of other group members.

Also related to the study of coalitions and power distribution is research on voting institutions. Walker et al. (2000) found that voting substantially increases the efficiency of the outcomes in commons dilemma games. Voting can act as communication signal when no communication is possible. The very act of making a proposal and voting on a set of proposals signals limited information to all involved. In particular, it appears to generate information that enables a learning process to occur. This learning extends to subsequent situations and enables people to coordinate their activities even in rounds where no proposals are made.

In a common dilemma people confronted with lack of resources willingly endow authorities with additional control over the resources. The legitimacy of such authorities is determined by the authorities’ commitment to fair allocation and decision making procedures. People’ social identifications with their community moderate the relationship between authorities’ use of fair procedures and the support of the authorities. Those who feel pride in their community and perceived procedures to be fair express particular support for the regulating authorities. People who took pride in their community care even less about their personal outcomes. Tyler and Degoey (1995) suggest that authorities’ effectiveness is primarily linked to the nature of their social bonds with community members. Social identification with community is an important variable that should not be overlooked in future studies of resource dilemmas.

On the other hand, a question has sparked opposing theoretical perspectives whether socioeconomic heterogeneity leads to cooperation or hinders it. The focus on economic heterogeneity in studies of locally managed social issues find support for the fact that heterogeneity hinders cooperation. All types of heterogeneity such as social, ethnic, and cultural differences similarly affect the cooperation and play an important role.