The actions of others as determinants of behavior in social trap situations

Undermining trust and cooperation: The paradox of sanctioning systems in social dilemmas

“…This manipulation was based on the Wndings that people adopt the behavior that others show (Schroeder, Jensen, Reed, Sullivan, & Schwab, 1983) and on the generally accepted notion that trust tends to evoke trust and distrust tends to evoke distrust (Blomqvist, 1997). To manipulate trust participants were, before they were presented the two social dilemma situations, exposed to a diVerent mixed-motive situation in which they observed four persons who either trusted or distrusted another person.…”

Pro-social behavior in a natural setting

“…Conditional cooperation may not be triggered by a norm of reciprocity, but more by the wish to fulfill a social norm to behave appropriately (Messick, 1999). The few studies that try to evaluate in the laboratory whether people undertake social comparison out of conformity or reciprocity mostly conclude that their results can be explained by conformity rather than by reciprocity (Schroeder et al, 1983;Bohnet and Zeckhauser, 2003;Bardsley and Sausgruber, 2002).…”

“How many bad apples does it take to spoil the whole barrel?”: Social exclusion and toleration for bad apples

“…There is by now considerable and convincing evidence that group members' behavior within a social dilemma is influenced by both expectations and observations of others' behavior (e.g., Bornstein & Ben-Yossef, 1994;Braver & Barnett, 1974;Dawes, McTavish, & Shaklee, 1977;Komorita, Parks, & Hulbert, 1992;Schroeder, Jensen, Reed, Sullivan, & Schwab, 1983;Yamagishi & Sato, 1986). With some notable exceptions (e.g., a strong competitor's tendency to exploit uniformly cooperative others, e.g., Kelley & Stahelski, 1970), the more cooperative others in the group are (or are expected to be), the more cooperative we tend to be.…”