Promoting cooperation in social dilemmas via fairness norms and group goals

Abstract

In everyday life, people often encounter situations where their personal interests are at odds with the welfare of a larger collective to which they belong. What seems to be an individually rational choice may later have detrimental effects on the wellbeing of the group. Such conflicts of interest are referred to as social dilemmas (Dawes, 1980). Social dilemmas are formally defined as situations in which (1) individual outcomes for non-cooperative behavior or defection are larger than outcomes for cooperative behavior (favoring the collective interest), regardless of how other members in a collective behave; but (2) if all members adhere to this individually rational behavior, all members will acquire a lower payoff in the end as compared to if all had chosen to cooperate in the first place. © 2008 Springer US.