Fear or Greed? Duty or Solidarity? Motivations and Stages of Moral Reasoning: Experimental Evidences from Public-Goods Provision Dilemmas

As economists increasingly recognize the limits of the canonical self-interest assumption, the lack of a theory of human valuation that clearly specifies what determines an individual’s utility judgments renders the prediction of behavior in social dilemmas virtually impossible.  In this study, we examined the explanatory power of a structuralist-constructivist theory of adult development and this theory’s analytical significance to the understanding of behavioral diversity in situations where individual and collective interests collide. Experimental results suggest that the theoretical constructs built into the selected theory provide a reliable basis for predicting participants’ behavior when presented with two different collective-action dilemmas under diverse institutional conditions.social dilemmas, experimental economics, sociocognitive and moral reasoning, adult development, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, C72, C92, D74,

THE COMMONS DILEMMA REVISITED: EXPANDING RATIONALITY AND ANIMATING INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

The classical theoretical prediction for the “commons dilemma” is as tragedy. The situation popularized as “the tragedy of the commons” became intriguing because beneath this unfortunate and surely undesired result of collective action laid the model of “rational actor”. Yet, the messiness of alternative theories of human behavior has been motive of hesitation to adopt more realistic assumptions than those of the rational choice to address collective action. Still, a deeper understanding of the interplay among cognition, values systems, and institutions should be the starting point for any discussion of societal change. In this paper, we present a new approach to advance the theory of collective action by combining the framework of institutional analysis with Clare Graves’s theory of adult biopsychosocial development. Moreover, we sketch an empirical strategy for investigating the behavioral hypotheses resulting from the Graves’ model using experimental CPR (common-pool resource) games. The results from the suggested approach promise to be a valuable improvement toward a more integral approach to collective action problems and sustainability

Fear or greed? Duty or solidarity? Motivations and the development of sociocognitive and moral reasoning: experimental evidences from public-goods provision dilemmas

Judging from the perspective of standard game theory, empirical research has uncovered a rich array of “anomalies” that systematically occur in situations that were once thought to have properties leading to clear predictions. This is particularly the case for social dilemmas related to the appropriation of common-pool resources and provision of public-goods. Explanation of such anomalies has focused on the effects of structural variables and contexts on people’s decisions. However, the present study suggest that classifications or typologies based on such descriptors of the action situation are not enough to explain and predict individuals’ decisions in social dilemmas because sociocognitive and moral reasoning has its own stages of development and cannot be deduced from the objective incentive structure or context of action alone. In order to examine this proposition we test experimentally the explanatory power of a selected developmental model designed to rationally reconstruct the pretheoretical knowledge of competently judging subjects. Results indicate that the theoretical constructs of the chosen model provide reliable source of information to explain and predict diverse behavioral responses to similar incentive structures in a public-goods provision dilemmas under variable institutional conditions

The Development of the Willingness to Cooperate: Collective-Action under the Light of the Constructivist Conception of Adult Development

Along with the changes experienced in the landscape of global agricultural and food systems there is a rising pressure upon the open-access, common-pool resources and ecological environments of the globe. While the conventional theory underlies the vision of a tragedy, and fosters Leviathan-like remedies to overcome problems of overexploitation and destruction of the commons, growing evidence from field studies has called for a serious rethinking of the theoretical foundations for the analysis of collective-action problems. Yet, in moving beyond the conventional view, the lack of a theory of human valuation hinders both the prediction of agents’ variable responses to similar incentive structures and the development of a more general theory of collective-action. In this study, we test experimentally the explanatory power of a constructivist developmental model of adult personality systems which is particularly suitable for addressing situations where the individual and the collective gains conflict. The results suggest that the model provides a valuable source of information for the advancement of the theory of collective-action and has important implications for the development of intuitions aimed at overcoming social dilemmas

Fear or Greed? Duty or Solidarity? Motivations and Stages of Moral Reasoning: Experimental Evidences from Public-Goods Provision Dilemmas

As economists increasingly recognize the limits of the canonical self-interest assumption, the lack of a theory of human valuation that clearly specifies what determines an individual’s utility judgments renders the prediction of behavior in social dilemmas virtually impossible.  In this study, we examined the explanatory power of a structuralist-constructivist theory of adult development and this theory’s analytical significance to the understanding of behavioral diversity in situations where individual and collective interests collide. Experimental results suggest that the theoretical constructs built into the selected theory provide a reliable basis for predicting participants’ behavior when presented with two different collective-action dilemmas under diverse institutional conditions