Group items tagged

I first heard from Jennifer Jacquet in July 2006 when she invited me to speak about Russian-American sea-otter hunting to the weekly seminar of the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia. To the usual request for a title and abstract, "at your convenience" she added "though if you do it by Saturday I could hang the poster before I leave for Africa." I did.

Can the threat of being shamed or the prospect of being honoured lead to greater cooperation? We test this hypothesis with anonymous six-player public goods experiments, an experimental paradigm used to investigate problems related to overusing common resources. We instructed the players that the two individuals who were least generous after 10 rounds would be exposed to the group. As the natural antithesis, we also test the effects of honour by revealing the identities of the two players who were most generous. The non-monetary, reputational effects induced by shame and honour each led to approximately 50 per cent higher donations to the public good when compared with the control, demonstrating that both shame and honour can drive cooperation and can help alleviate the tragedy of the commons.