Cooperative ChoiceCooperative and non-cooperative motives and

their consequences

Lıvia Markoczy

Livia.Markoczy@ucr.edu

Gary A. Anderson Graduate School of Management

University of California, Riverside

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Current trends in org. studies

Focus is on social context and away fromindividual factors

Also true for cooperation studies. Little focuson individual differences.

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This presentation

To discuss the multiplicity of cooperative motives

that affect cooperative choices in the context of a

social dilemma.

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Road map of presentation

Using social dilemmas to study cooperation

Critique of three current approaches1. Individualistic vs. Collectivist cultures2. Self-interest3. Situational determinism

Multiplicity of motives

Ways of talking about these motives

Directions for the future work

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Social Dilemmas

A social dilemma is a situation in which if every-

one follows their self-interest, everyone is worse

off. The best pay-off to an individual is if everyone

else cooperators, while s/he defects.

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Social Dilemmas: Also Known As

Tragedy of the Commons

Public Goods problems

n-player prisoner’s dilemmas

Problems of cooperation.

Free-rider problem

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Examples of Social Dilemmas

Overgrazing on a common field

Failure to conserve water during a drought

Raising one’s own voice to be heard in acrowded room

Shirking on group effort

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Dominant explanations

1. Individualistic vs. Collectivist cultures

2. Self-interest

3. Situational determinism

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What’s wrong with culture

Fails to account for differences within cultures

Provides very few dimensions along whichthings vary

Possibly circular

Often based on ‘weak’ anthropology

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What’s wrong with self-interest

Either:

Sweeps the puzzle of cooperation under arug, or

Is entirely circular and meaningless.

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What’s wrong with situationalism?

Situationalism is correct, unless it . . .

Leaves no room for individual variation.

Fails to provide psychological account of linkbetween situation and behavior.

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The multidimensional view

There are many “little” psychological factors

People differ in how much different ones playa role

Situations differ in how they “trigger” differentmotives

No Grand Theory

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The motives

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The literatures

Many of these motives have been discussedseparately in a variety of different literatures. Inwhat follows

Exp. GT = Experimental Game TheorySocΨ = Social PsychologyCogΨ = Cognitive Psychology

Poly = Political Science/Economics

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Some cooperative motives

Altruism: A desire to help others. (Exp. GT,SocΨ)

Everyday Kantianism: “If I don’t do it, whowill” (Elster, Goldberg & Markóczy, CogΨ,Exp. GT)

Elite participationism: Likes being at the startof something good. (Elster, Poly)

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Some more cooperative motives

Mass participationism: Enjoying being part ofsomething big (Elster, SocΨ, Poly)

High Efficacy: “Every little bit counts; you canmake a difference” (SocΨ, Zimbardo)

Cooperative Fairness: “It would be wrong ofme to defect if others are cooperating” (SocΨ,Exp. GT, Croson)

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Some uncooperative motives

Fear: Fear of being a sucker. (Exp. GT)

Greed: Benefits of free-riding (Exp. GT)

Spite: Wishes to maximize advantage relativeto others (Exp. GT)

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Some more uncooperative motives

Uncooperative Fairness: “It isn’t fair for me tocooperate if others are defecting” (SocΨ,Exp. GT, Croson)

Low efficacy: “My contribution is just a drop inthe bucket”. (Chiates, et al.)

Cool: “I don’t follow the crowd or socialnorms” (Chiates et al.)

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No Grand Theory

The implication of this approach which some mayfind depressing is that we will never have a generaltheory of collective action . . . If social scientistsforgot their obsession with grand theory, andlooked instead for small and medium sizedmechanisms that apply across a wide spectrum ofsocial situations, some mathematical economistsand Parsonian sociologists (to name but a few)might go out of business, but the world would be abetter-understood place (Jon Elster, The Cementof Society ).

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Problems of Grand Theory

Grand theories and categories have forced prior

researches into noticing only those motives that fit

the categorization, from what ever literature they

come.

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Groupings of motives

Even with no grand categorization it is still usefulto provide some groupings of these 12 motives.Such groupings might be

Cooperative vs. uncooperative

Conditionality on what others may do

Sensitivity to social influence

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Conditionality on others

Coop Un-coopCond. mass, fairness fear, fairness,

coolUncond. altruism, elite, greed, spite

high efficacy low efficacy

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Measures and Models

Some motives have been very wellresearched (eg, Fear and Greed), othershave merely been proposed (eg, Eliteparticipationism).

Only some motives have been shown topersist to a variety of situations, but mosthaven’t been subject to such study.

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Measures and Models continued

Only some motives can be easily formallymodeled with existing techniques ofexperimental game theory, others requireextensions to the existing formalisms.

Some motives may turn out to be irrelevantfor social dilemmas in general or cooperationin organizations in particular (eg, massparticipationism)

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Are others really wrong?

Situationalism isn’t wrong, but despite itspromises, it forces a blindness to themultiplicity motives.

Cultures may certainly vary in the degree towhich they support some of these motives.But there is no single “norm of cooperation”.

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Resources

The full paper, these slides, and possibly otherinformation about this project can be found at:

http://www.goldmark.org/livia/papers/coop/

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