Extensive empirical evidence and theoretical developments in multiple disciplines stimulate a need to expand the range of rational choice models to be used as a foundation for the study of social dilemmas and collective action. After an introduction to the problem of overcoming social dilemmas through collective action, the remainder of this article is divided into six sections. The first briefly reviews the theoretical predictions of currently accepted rational choice theory related to social dilemmas. The second section summarizes the challenges to the sole reliance on a complete model of rationality presented by extensive experimental research. In the third section, I discuss two major empirical findings that begin to show how individuals achieve results that are “better than rational” by building conditions where reciprocity, reputation, and trust can help to overcome the strong temptations of short-run self-interest. The fourth section raises the possibility of developing second-generation models of rationality, the fifth section develops an initial theoretical scenario, and the final section concludes by examining the implications of placing reciprocity, reputation, and trust at the core of an empirically tested, behavioral theory of collective action.

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A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997

The study of social dilemmas is the study of the tension between individual and collective rationality. In a social dilemma, individually reasonable behavior leads to a situation in which everyone is worse off. The first part of this review is a discussion of categories of social dilemmas and how they are modeled. The key two-person social dilemmas (Prisoner's Dilemma, Assurance, Chicken) and multiple-person social dilemmas (public goods dilemmas and commons dilemmas) are examined. The second part is an extended treatment of possible solutions for social dilemmas. These solutions are organized into three broad categories based on whether the solutions assume egoistic actors and whether the structure of the situation can be changed: Motivational solutions assume actors are not completely egoistic and so give some weight to the outcomes of their partners. Strategic solutions assume egoistic actors, and neither of these categories of solutions involve changing the fundamental structure of the situation. Solu...

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SOCIAL DILEMMAS: The Anatomy of Cooperation

The relative advantages of private property and common property for the efficiency, equity, and sustainability of natural resource use patterns have been debated in legal and economic literatures for several centuries. The debate has been clouded by a troika of confusions that relate to the difference between (1) common property and open-access regimes, (2) common-pool resources and common property regimes, and (3) a resource system and the flow of resource units. A property right is an enforceable authority to undertake particular actions in specific domains. The rights of access, withdrawal, management, exclusion and alienation can be separately assigned to different individuals as well as being viewed as a cumulative scale moving from the minimal right of access through possessing full ownership rights. All of these rights may be held by single individuals or by collectivities. Some attributes of common-pool resources are conducive to the use of communal proprietorship or ownership and others are conducive to individual rights to withdrawal, management, exclusion and alienation. Many of the lessons learned from the operation of communal property regimes related to natural resource systems are theoretically relevant to the understanding of a wide diversity of property regimes that are extensively used in modern societies. JEL classification: K1, Q2, H4, D7

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Private and Common Property Rights

Analysis of binary choice behavior in iterated tasks with immediate feedback reveals robust deviations from maximization that can be described as indications of 3 effects: (a) a payoff variability effect, in which high payoff variability seems to move choice behavior toward random choice; (b) underweighting of rare events, in which alternatives that yield the best payoffs most of the time are attractive even when they are associated with a lower expected return; and (c) loss aversion, in which alternatives that minimize the probability of losses can be more attractive than those that maximize expected payoffs. The results are closer to probability matching than to maximization. Best approximation is provided with a model of reinforcement learning among cognitive strategies (RELACS). This model captures the 3 deviations, the learning curves, and the effect of information on uncertainty avoidance. It outperforms other models in fitting the data and in predicting behavior in other experiments.

On Adaptation, Maximization, and Reinforcement Learning among Cognitive Strategies.

Know when to walk away: contingent movement and the evolution of cooperation.

Social orientation analysis of the common and individual interest problems.- Toward more locomotion in experimental games.- Individual reasoning process in the participation game with period.- The position effect: The role of a player's serial position in a resource dilemma game.- Positive and negative mood effects on solving a resource dilemma.- Fairness judgements in an asymmetric public goods dilemma.- Group size effects in social dilemmas: A review of the experimental literature and some new results for one-shot N-PD games.- Provision of step-level public goods: Effects of different information structures.- Conditional contributions and public good provision.- Convergence in the orange grove: Learning processes in a social dilemma setting.- Leadership and group identity as determinants of resource consumption in a social dilemma.- Prisoner's dilemma networks: Selection strategy versus action strategy.- Choice of strategies in social dilemma supergames.- Social dilemmas exist in space.- Commuting by car or by public transportation? An interdependence theoretical approach.- Evolution of norms without metanorms.- Computer simulations of the relation between individual heuristics and global cooperation in prisoner's dilemmas.- What risk should a selfish partner take in order to save the life of a nonrelative, selfish friend? - A stochastic game approach to the prisoner's dilemma.- Learning models for the prisoner's dilemma game: A review.- Social capital and cooperation: Communication, bounded rationality, and behavioral heuristics.- Cooperation in an asymmetric volunteer's dilemma game: Theory and experimental evidence.- Ten rules of bargaining sequences: A boundedly rational model of coalition bargaining in characteristic function games.- Aspiration processing in multilateral bargaining: Experiment, theory and simulation.- Resistance against mass immigration - An evolutionary explanation.- Authors index.

Ulrich Schulz

Papers

Social dilemmas and cooperation