Cooperation in social dilemmas: The necessity of seeing self-control conflict

Peter Martinsson, Kristian Ove R. Myrseth and Conny Wollbrant
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Kristian Ove R. Myrseth: ESMT European School of Management and Technology

ESMT Research Working Papers from ESMT European School of Management and Technology

Abstract: Individuals in a social dilemma may experience a self-control conflict between urges to act selfishly and their better judgment to cooperate. Pairing a public goods game with a subtle framing technique, we test whether perception of self-control conflict strengthens the association between self-control and cooperation. Consistent with our hypothesis, cooperative behavior is positively associated with self-control for individuals in the treatment that raised the relative likelihood of perceiving conflict, but not associated with self-control in the treatment that lowered the likelihood. These results help advance our understanding of the role of self-control in social interaction.

Keywords: self-control; pro-social behavior; public good experiment; conditional cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D03 D64 D70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2010-07-26, Revised 2012-11-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-ltv, nep-pbe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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http://static.esmt.org/publications/workingpapers/ESMT-10-004_R1.pdf Revised version, 2012 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-10-004

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