Commons Dilemmas

The more we know the more we care

Social motives are generalized to be directed under two key characteristics, namely cooperative versus competitive types whose dispositions demonstrate stable and programmed interaction having little influence on each other’s world view and decision making (McClintock, 1978). Social value orientations for competitor and individualistic types are referred to as pro-self motives whereas for cooperative and altruistic types as pro-social motives. The findings imply to choice behaviour as well as interpretation of behaviour. These are important elements to study when educating and raising public awareness on environmental pollution.

There are two sets of behaviour to be addressed with pro-self attitudes implying to egocentricity of what works versus pro-social that is concerned with what is right to do in a collective or group level. In the context of commons dilemmas such as traffic congestion studies show that pro-social individuals exhibit preference to use public transportation rather than private car being concerned with collective outcomes of environmental pollution. Therefore social motives are not conceptualized merely a matter of choice but also different perceptions of rationality and intelligence. Both cooperators and non-cooperators agree on cooperation being related to concern for others.

Studies on social dilemmas have found that communication and a period of discussion among participants yields positive cooperative effects. It can be explained as group discussion enhances solidarity and consensus as well as elicits commitments to cooperate. Group discussion on public goods proved to increase cooperation by 30 percent. These results are also consistent with the finding that in a public goods dilemma “ a pledge with a certain degree of commitment may facilitate cooperative behaviour” (Chen and Komorita 1994).

But why do people follow through on their commitments? Do they fear social norms or are they internally motivated? One of the interesting findings of Kerr and his colleagues (1997) was that people honoured their commitments even if there was no chance of getting caught cheating. The result of their study suggested that the functioning norm is governed predominantly by self monitoring. This brings clear message that by encouraging dialogue, a society’s ability to instill well internalized personal commitment norms among its citizens may be more effective in managing resource dilemmas in the long run than might sanctioning systems.

Tyler and Degoey (1995) on the other hand suggest that authorities’ effectiveness is primarily linked to the nature of their social bonds with community members. Therefore, in general, social identification with community and communication are important variables in mobilizing cooperation in resource dilemmas. However, there are subtleties worth exploring in the communication effect to function. Communication can vary not only in terms of being face to face or technology driven but also with respect to directionality in order to yield solidarity and cooperation. When the researchers told their participants that they had earned the right to go first, to be the controller, people took more of the resources than when they were told they had been designated as the controller by the experimenter.

Additionally there are challenges for commons management that has been identified, that is to give careful consideration to cultural factors when making statements about commons dilemma strategies. And, also, to consider the long term consequences of sanctioning systems and authorities on trust and general cooperative tendencies in communities. It should be noted that studies on reward or punishment, such as one that Samuelson & Van Vugt (1999) conducted in a field experiment to promote water conservation – tested personal metering during a naturally occurring resource crisis – a water shortage. They found that conservation efforts were greater among metered (versus unmetered) households when people perceived the water shortage as severe. In conclusion, sanctioning systems offer potential benefits to the management of common resources. On the other hand, sanctioning systems may undermine intrinsic motivations for cooperation and other generally helpful factors for community life such as interpersonal trust.

It is important to note the potentially negative influences that uncertainty has on cooperation in commons dilemmas. Work by Roch and Samuelson (1997) supports the hypothesis that different types of people perceive environmental uncertainly differently. Specifically, social motives moderated the effect of environmental uncertainty on harvesting behaviour. These authors found that individualists and competitors increased their harvesting under situations of uncertainty. In contrast, prosocial individuals – cooperative types held their harvest constant, or harvested less.

Schelling (1968) claims that the more we know, the more we care. For the management of resource dilemmas, these findings suggest that actions diminishing social distance between harvesters and those who stand to suffer first or most from the depletion of a resource may have advantageous consequences.

Sources:

David Messick, Mark Weber, Shirli Kopelman; Factors influencing cooperation in commons dilemmas, p118- 148, 2000

Alison, S.T., Socila decisionmaking processes and the equal partitionment of shared resources. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 28 (1): 23-42, 1992

Aquino, K.V., The effects of resource distribution, voice, and decision framing on the provisionof public goods. Journal of Conflict Resolution 36(4):665-687,1992