Information-sharing and cooperation in networked collective action groups

Abstract

When people provide for large-scale public goods, they often do not know what each individual group member is contributing. Instead, they commonly have access to the behaviors of their ties, in a broader network of others whose decisions are unknown. But network ties also serve as channels of communication, allowing behaviors to reach a larger audience. Here, we ask how public good production is affected in networks when people can share information about their ties’ behaviors with their other connections—and what behaviors they tend to share. We predict that networked collective action groups demonstrate higher levels of cooperation when their members can share information about their ties’ decisions with their other connections, compared with when they cannot. Informed by prior work, we consider two pathways by which information-sharing opportunities might shape cooperation in networked collective action groups: (i) as a means of coordinating one's own decisions with those of the larger group, including those to whom one is not directly tied, and (ii) as a reminder of possible reputational consequences for selfishness. Across two exploratory experiments (combined n = 7,014 contribution decisions, 49 groups), we demonstrate that opportunities to share information about others’ decisions promote public good production. The benefits occur even though people tend to share information about relatively selfish behaviors that, at first blush, might seem detrimental to cooperation. Our results build on prior work by showing that information-sharing prevents selfishness from becoming contagious by raising reputational concerns.