Hierarchy, Power, and Strategies to Promote Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Molho, Catherine; Balliet, Daniel; Wu, Junhui

doi:10.3390/g10010012

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Recent work has found that people's perceptions of interdependence in social situations are organized along these three dimensions (Gerpott et al, 2018 Thompson & Hastie, 1990), and that people understand when they possess relatively high or low power in social interactions (Fiske, 2010;Galinsky et al, 2015;Molho, Balliet, & Wu, 2019;Sivanathan, Pillutla, & Murnighan, 2008). Thus, perceptions of interdependence can be meaningfully tied to the underlying, objective interdependence in social interactions, and so people should share similar inferences about the interdependence that characterizes a specific situation (Balliet et al, 2017).…”

Section: Agreement and Accuracy In Subjective Interdependencementioning

confidence: 99%

Interdependence and cooperation in daily life.

Columbus¹,

Molho²,

Righetti³

et al. 2021

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Philosophers and scientists have long debated the nature of human social interactions and the prevalence of mutual dependence, conflict of interests, and power asymmetry in social situations. Yet, there is surprisingly little empirical work documenting the patterns of interdependence that people experience in daily life. We use experience sampling to study how people think about three dimensions of interdependence in daily life and how these dimensions relate to cooperation. In Study 1, 139 romantic couples (n = 278) reported on situations experienced with their partner (k = 6,766); in Study 2, individuals (n = 284) reported on situations experienced with any other person (k = 7,248), over the course of one week. Across both samples, we found that most social interactions were perceived as containing moderate mutual dependence, equal power, and corresponding interests. When couples reported on the same situation (Study 1), they largely agreed on their experienced interdependence and cooperation, suggesting that their reports reflect an underlying shared reality. In daily interactions across both samples, higher mutual dependence and lower conflict of interests were associated with more cooperation, whereas relative power was not directly related to cooperation. These associations replicated in laboratory experiments (Study 2). In daily life, high mutual dependence and high relative power exacerbated the negative relation between conflict of interests and cooperation. Finally, prevalent patterns of interdependence and the experience of specific interdependent situations affected multiple relationship outcomes. Our findings stress the importance of studying a diverse array of interdependent situations-and especially situations with corresponding interests-to better understand cooperation in daily life.

show abstract

Section: Agreement and Accuracy In Subjective Interdependencementioning

confidence: 99%

Interdependence and cooperation in daily life.

Columbus¹,

Molho²,

Righetti³

et al. 2021

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…According to a vast literature, cooperation can be promoted using different tools, such as punishment [13,14], reputation and gossip [14][15][16], and communication [17]. Of particular relevance is the work of [18], which focuses on cooperation in situations with power asymmetry, testing some strategies that might help promoting cooperation (such as gossip and punishment). The authors show that despite the difference in power, group members do not show significantly different levels of cooperation.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Repeated Interaction and Its Impact on Cooperation and Surplus Allocation—An Experimental Analysis

Guida¹,

Kirchsteiger

Lenaerts

et al. 2021

Games

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper investigates how the possibility of affecting group composition combined with the possibility of repeated interaction impacts cooperation within groups and surplus distribution. We developed and tested experimentally a Surplus Allocation Game where cooperation of four agents is needed to produce surplus, but only two have the power to allocate it among the group members. Three matching procedures (corresponding to three separate experimental treatments) were used to test the impact of the variables of interest. A total of 400 subjects participated in our research, which was computer-based and conducted in a laboratory. Our results show that allowing for repeated interaction with the same partners leads to a self-selection of agents into groups with different life spans, whose duration is correlated with the behavior of both distributors and receivers. While behavior at the group level is diverse for surplus allocation and amount of cooperation, aggregate behavior is instead similar when repeated interaction is allowed or not allowed. We developed a behavioral model that captures the dynamics observed in the experimental data and sheds light into the rationales that drive the agents’ individual behavior, suggesting that the most generous distributors are those acting for fear of rejection, not for true generosity, while the groups lasting the longest are those composed by this type of distributors and “undemanding” receivers.

show abstract

“…Fifth, when sampling gossip events in both workplace settings and daily life, researchers should include formal situations (see Figure 3 for examples, for more examples see also, e.g., Dores Cruz et al, 2020). Vignette studies could include formal gossip situations, and experimental studies could offer different communication channels ranging in (in)formality to examine when and why people opt for more formal or informal gossip, for example, as a function of role or power differences (Jeuken et al, 2015; Martinescu et al, 2019a; Molho, Balliet, & Wu,2019; Shank et al, 2019; Wu et al, 2016a). This could provide insights into the dynamics between leaders and subordinates, which could be characterized by gossip on the more formal end of the (in)formality axis.…”

Section: Applying the Dimensional Scaling Framework In Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Integrative Definition and Framework to Study Gossip

Cruz

Nieper

Testori

et al. 2021

Group & Organization Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The omnipresence of workplace gossip makes understanding gossip processes imperative to understand social life in organizations. Although gossip research has recently increased across the social sciences, gossip is conceptualized in disparate ways in the scientific literature. This conceptual confusion impedes theoretical integration and providing practical advice. To resolve this, we systematically reviewed 6114 scientific articles on gossip and identified 324 articles that define gossip. From these definitions, we extracted two essential characteristics of gossip on which there seems to be agreement within the literature, namely, (1) that gossip is communication between humans involving a sender, a receiver, and a target, and (2) that the target is absent or unaware of the communicated content. These two characteristics formed the basis of a broad, integrative definition of gossip: a sender communicating to a receiver about a target who is absent or unaware of the content. Furthermore, some definitions include characteristics on which there is less agreement: gossip valence (from negative to neutral to positive) and formality (from informal to intermediate to formal). We incorporate these characteristics in a dimensional scaling framework that can guide future research. Our broad, integrative definition of gossip and the dimensional scaling framework provide the building blocks for a systematic, integrated knowledge base on the role of gossip in human social life in general as well as in organizations. This can foster future theory development and hypothesis testing, ultimately helping organizations to manage gossip.

show abstract

Hierarchy, Power, and Strategies to Promote Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Cited by 16 publications

References 45 publications

Interdependence and cooperation in daily life.

Interdependence and cooperation in daily life.

Repeated Interaction and Its Impact on Cooperation and Surplus Allocation—An Experimental Analysis

An Integrative Definition and Framework to Study Gossip

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About