National inequality, social capital, and public goods decision-making

Inequality affects how people make social decisions. Laboratory research has shown that when income inequality is simulated using cooperative economic games, groups with higher inequality often generate less wealth overall, with poorer group members receiving the worst outcomes. This study links these experimental findings to real world inequality and applies a decision model to explain the effects in terms of social decision-making dynamics. Using a pre-existing dataset from 255 groups playing a public goods game in thirteen economically diverse societies, we show that in nations with higher inequality, groups contribute less (Research question (RQ) 1). Further, we find that higher inequality is associated with lower optimism regarding others’ contributions at the outset of the game and increased sensitivity to others’ contributions, which accelerates the decay of cooperation (RQ2). These effects might be explained by national differences in social capital as expressed by trust and adherence to civic norms (RQ3). Using the European Values Survey, we replicate the negative association between inequality and contributions to a public good by examining national volunteering rates (RQ4)

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

Strategic shift reward

It was examined whether the shift towards prosocial behavior observed in the presence of a reward system was favored by reflection rather than intuition. Participants played two rounds of a public goods game, one without the possibility of being rewarded and one with the possibility of being rewarded. We manipulated whether participants were instructed to decide intuitively or reflectively. Participants contributed more when rewarding was possible. The shift towards cooperation was not favored by reflection vs. intuition

Intuitive reward

This study tested whether rewarding cooperative individuals is executed intuitively rather than reflectively. Participants saw the decisions other people made in a public goods game and could decide to reward these other people. We manipulated whether participants were instructed to decide intuitively or reflectively. Reward behavior did not depend on decision-making style

Intuitive decision making promotes rewarding prosocial others independent of the personality trait Honesty-Humility

Although past research has convincingly shown that rewarding prosocial individuals helps to establish high levels of cooperation, research investigating factors that promote rewarding others has been surprisingly rare. The present research addresses this gap and examines two factors that were shown in past research to play a role in prosocial behaviour. In a well-powered study (total N = 1003), we tested the impact of (a) a basic prosocial personality trait (the Honesty-Humility dimension from the HEXACO personality model) and (b) intuitive decision- making, as well as (c) their interaction, in rewarding prosocial individuals. We found that (1) intuition promotes rewarding prosocial others; (2) Honesty-Humility was not significantly related to rewarding prosocial others; and (3) that Honesty-Humility did not significantly moderate the effect of intuition on reward. Implications for the understanding of reciprocating others’ prosocial behaviour are discussed

National Inequality, Social Capital, and Public Goods Decision Making

Inequality affects how people make social decisions. Laboratory research has shown that when income inequality is simulated using cooperative economic games, groups with higher inequality often generate less wealth overall, with poorer group members receiving the worst outcomes. This study links these experimental findings to real world inequality and applies a decision model to explain the effects in terms of social decision-making dynamics. Using a pre-existing dataset from 255 groups playing a public goods game in thirteen economically diverse societies, we show that in nations with higher inequality, groups contribute less (Research question (RQ) 1). Further, we find that higher inequality is associated with lower optimism regarding others’ contributions at the outset of the game and increased sensitivity to others’ contributions, which accelerates the decay of cooperation (RQ2). These effects might be explained by national differences in social capital as expressed by trust and adherence to civic norms (RQ3). Using the European Values Survey, we replicate the negative association between inequality and contributions to a public good by examining national volunteering rates (RQ4)