Cooperation in public good games. Calculated or confused?

Abstract

Recent experiments suggest that contribution decisions in a public goods game (PGG) are more likely to be cooperative if based on intuition rather than reflection. This paper (i) reinvestigates the behavioral impact of so-called cognitive style in the PGG; and (ii) connects it with an earlier literature on the role of cognitive failure (confusion). This is motivated by the possibility that the method of time pressure, commonly used to identify cognitive style, invites confusion as a confounding factor. Two channels for such confounds are identified and experimentally tested: A heterogeneous treatment effect of time pressure depending on subject's confusion status and a direct impact of time pressure on subjects' likelihood of being confused. Our reinvestigation on the behavioral impact of time pressure confirms that cognitive style matters, but that deliberation rather than intuition drives cooperation. The confounding effect of confusion is not found to be direct, but to operate through a heterogeneous treatment effect. Time pressure selectively reduces average contributions among those subjects whose contributions can confidently be interpreted as cooperative rather than confused.

The Dual-Process Approach to Human Sociality: A Review

“…A similar warm-up procedure was followed by Isler, Maule and Starmer (2018), who also found that time pressure increases cooperation. In contrast to this line of research, however, there have also been two studies finding a negative effect of time pressure on cooperation: Capraro & Cococcioni (2016) found that extreme time pressure leads to less cooperation; Goeschl and Lohse (2018) found that time pressure leads to more free-riding in the one-shot public goods game. However, the former work had the limitation that time constraints were added in the instruction screen, and this might have interacted with participants' level of comprehension; whereas the latter work had very high non-compliance rate (43%).…”

“…No effect of Pressure vs Delay on the whole sample. Pressure increases cooperation, among participants who respect the time constraint Everett et al (2017) Prisoner's dilemma Pressure increases cooperation, compared to delay, also towards competitive out-groups Goeschl & Lohse (2018) Public goods game Pressure decreases cooperation Alós-Ferrer & Garagnani (2018) Public goods game Pressure increases cooperation among prosocial participants; Pressure has no effect on individualist participants; Pressure decreases cooperation among competitive participants Bird et al (2019) Public Goods Game among males…”

The dual-process approach to human sociality: Meta-analytic evidence for a theory of internalized heuristics for self-preservation

“…They replicated the effect that time pressure increases cooperation, but only when participants who fail to comply with the time constraint are excluded from the analysis; they concluded that the positive effect of time pressure on cooperation is best explained in terms of selection bias. Two works even found the opposite effect: Capraro & Cococcioni (2016) found that extreme time pressure leads to less cooperation in the one-shot prisoner's dilemma, Goeschl and Lohse (2018) found that time pressure causes more free-riding in the one-shot public goods game. However, the former work had the limitation that time constraints were added in the instruction screen, and this might have interacted with participants' level of comprehension, whereas the latter work had very high non-compliance rate (43%).…”

Intuitive Prosociality: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects or False Positive?

“…First, the Dictator game abstracts from strategic interaction, which enables us to isolate the effect of a given cognitive processing manipulation on social preferences. Second, due to the element of strategic interaction the Public goods game is more difficult to understand, and confusion has been suggested to confound or moderate the effect of time constraints on behavior (Everett et al, 2017;Goeschl & Lohse, 2018;Strømland et al, 2016). By studying a Dictator game, confusion is unlikely to be a possible source of variation in the treatment effect.…”

“…Similar treatments in the Dictator game also contain mixed evidence; some find no effect (Hauge et al, 2016;Merkel & Lohse, 2018;Tinghög et al, 2016) and others report an effect (Schulz et al, 2014), while a meta-analysis suggests that there is an effect of intuitive processing on altruism only for women (Rand et al, 2016). A large string of papers has suggested that the effect of intuitive decisions on prosocial behavior is heterogeneous (Alós-Ferrer & Garagnani, 2018;Chen & Krajbich, 2018;Rand, 2016;Rand et al, 2016;Rand, 2018;McAuliffe et al, 2018;Strømland, Tjøtta & Torsvik, 2016;Goeschl & Lohse, 2018), which could account for the mixed findings in this literature.…”