What Is the Definition of a Social Dilemma

Social dilemmas arise when an individual receives a higher reward for defection than cooperation when everyone cooperates. If everyone goes rogue, they are worse off. That is, each member has a clear and unambiguous incentive to make a choice that, if made by all members, leads to a worse outcome. A good example of a social dilemma is imagining going out to dinner with a group of friends. Before eating, everyone agrees to share the cost fairly. When you look at the menu, you will see a lot of items that you like but do not fit your budget. The literature on social dilemmas has historically revolved around three metaphorical stories: the prisoner`s dilemma, the commons dilemma, and the commons tragedy (see commons dilemma); Each of these stories was modeled as an experimental game. But there may also be strategic considerations. First, communication gives group members the opportunity to make explicit promises and commitments about what they will do. However, it is not clear whether many people are keeping their promises of cooperation.

Similarly, through communication, people are able to gather information about what others are doing. In social dilemmas, however, this information can lead to ambiguous results: if I know that most people are cooperating, might I be tempted to act selfishly? In the broadest sense, social dilemmas involve a conflict between immediate self-interest and long-term collective interests. These are difficult situations because acting in the immediate self-interest is tempting for all parties involved, even though everyone has an interest in acting in the long-term collective interest. Therefore, a better understanding of social dilemmas should help us understand not only the theoretical puzzles of why people cooperate (or not), but also how to maintain or promote collaboration in groups and organizations. This article provides an overview of the different types of social dilemmas, highlights recent developments in the field (especially in psychology) and suggests new avenues for future research. We show that the field of social dilemma in terms of theory, interdisciplinary collaboration, and applicability is growing and thriving, producing new, reproducible ideas applicable to many social situations where short-term self-interest conflicts with the long-term interests of teams, organizations, or nations. This characteristic leads to a temptation to let others do the work and then enjoy the fruits of their labor once the goal is achieved. However, the same temptation exists for all the other members of the group, and if all succumb to it, then no one will work towards the goal: the goal will not be achieved and everyone will be worse than if everyone had made an effort. Hence the dilemma: should you do what`s best for yourself and hope others work hard, or do what`s best for the group and hope others don`t benefit from your efforts? Social dilemmas are generally divided into two types: common dilemmas (also called resource dilemmas or social traps), where short-term gain can lead to long-term loss, and public goods (or social barriers), under which a short-term loss can lead to long-term gain.

Previous research suggests that individuals prioritize prosocial motives over pro-ecological motives when these motives are in conflict, i.e. when cooperation and environmentally friendly behaviors are mutually exclusive. Therefore, defining environmentally friendly behavior as beneficial to others – and therefore prosocial at a higher or long-term level – should increase environmentally friendly behavior compared to purely environmentally friendly behavior per se. We test this idea in three experiments (N1 = 131, N2 = 323, N3 = 259), which manipulate the framing between subjects (control, environmental framework, social framework) in a resulting social dilemma. The results consistently show that both frames increase environmentally friendly behavior relative to the control condition. In addition, in two out of three experiments, social framing further increases environmentally friendly behavior compared to pure environmental framing. An overall analysis also confirmed that the combination of all assumptions best explained the data. Together, the results confirm the superiority of the social framework over the ecological framework in promoting environmentally friendly behavior when prosocial and environmentally friendly motives conflict. Another factor that could affect the weight individuals attribute to group results is the ability to communicate. A strong conclusion in the social dilemma literature is that collaboration increases when people have the opportunity to talk to each other. [ref.

needed] It was quite a challenge to explain this effect. One motivating reason is that communication reinforces the sense of group identity. [4] An emerging problem is the amount of information available to group members and the specificity of this information for the commons. In real commons dilemmas, group members almost always lack information about the commons, their groupmates, or both, and researchers try to understand the implications of this uncertainty. A general conclusion is that people become more consumable as the specificity of commons information decreases, and this is amplified when some people can scan commons before others. Early samplers will be particularly abusive (and interestingly, people seem to expect this to happen).