Social Dillemas « Enter The Blog

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This is a great read on social dilemmas—Social dilemmas are situations in which each member of a group has a clear and unambiguous incentive to make a choice that when made by all members provides poorer outcomes for all than they would have received if none had made the choice.

Robyn M. Dawes
David M. Messick

Abstract
In social dilemma situations, each individual always receives a higher payoff for defecting than for cooperating, but all are better off if all cooperate than if all defect. Often, however, people in social dilemmas attend more to the group’s payoffs than to their own, either automatically or to behave “appropriately.’ ‘ But whereas social identity elicits cooperative behaviour in dilemmas, it is generally only for the benefit of an “in-group.” Dilemmas between groups (requiring self-sacrificial behaviour within) are often the most extreme. Consequently, the framing and manipulation of group identity is critical to cooperation rate as demonstrated by careful laboratory experimentation.

Some examples of Social Dilemmas
A few more examples should suffice. Imagine that you and a group of seven casual acquaintances are having a dinner out. You all agree in advance of the meal to share the cost of the meal equally. As you examine the menu and the wine list you see a number of options that are very tempting but also that are very expensive. You realize that if you order an expensive main course and an expensive bottle of wine you will only have to pay one eighth of the cost yourself with the additional seven eighths being distributed equally among the others. This cost sharing obviously presents an opportunity for you to enjoy yourself without having to pay the full cost.
When every person at the table reasons in the same manner, however, all are collectively and individually stunned by the bill. It is far more than any one of you would have guessed. This example does not represent a problem for a society or for a corporation. However, the analogous problem of medical insurance is such a problem. People who pay medical insurance premiums are free to select the most expensive care they can and they all are shocked by the bill (next year’s premiums). You invest in a fishing boat and license and then want to take the largest catch that you can. You are then shocked when the fishery is seriously reduced in size, because after all you personally were responsible for only a minute fraction of this reduction.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL DILEMMAS
In the case of the public good, one strategy that has been employed is to create a moral sense of duty to support it—for instance, the public television station that one watches. The attempt is to reframe the decision as doing one’s duty rather than making a difference—again, in the wellbeing of the station watched. The injection of a moral element changes the calculation from “Will I make a difference’ ‘ to “I must pay for the benefit I get.’

The final illustration, the shared meal and its more serious counterparts, requires yet another approach. Here there is no hierarchy, as in the organizational example, that can be relied upon to solve the problem. With the shared meal, all the diners need to be aware of the temptation that they have and there need to be mutually agreed-upon limits to constrain the diners. Alternatively, the rule needs to be changed so that everyone pays for what they ordered. The latter arrangement creates responsibility in that all know that they will pay for what they order. Such voluntary arrangements may be difficult to arrange in some cases. With the medical insurance, the insurance company may recognize the risk and insist on a principle of co-payments for medical services. This is a step in the direction of paying for one’s own meal, but it allows part of the “meal’ ‘ to be shared
and part of it to be paid for by the one who ordered it.

The fishing version is more difficult. To make those harvesting the fish pay for some of the costs of the catch would require some sort of taxation to deter the unbridled exploitation of the fishery. Taxation, however, leads to tax avoidance or evasion. But those who harvest the fish would have no incentive to report their catches accurately or at all, especially if they were particularly successful, which simultaneously means particularly successfully—compared to others at least—in contributing to the problem of a subsequently reduced yield. Voluntary self-restraint would be punished as those with less of that personal quality would thrive while those with more would suffer. Conscience, as Hardin (1968) noted, would be self-eliminating.

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Relatively minor changes in the social environment can induce major changes in decision making because these minor changes can change the perceived appropriateness
of a situation. One variable that has been shown to make such a difference is whether the decision maker sees herself as an individual or as a part of a group