Between-group conflict and other-regarding preferences in nested social dilemmas

Robert Böhm, Gary Bornstein and Hannes Koppel ()
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Gary Bornstein: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Hannes Koppel: Heidelberg University, Germany

No 2014-011, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: We investigate experimentally the underlying motivations and individual differences with regard to the participation in between-group conflict in nested social dilemmas. In our nested social dilemmas, the collective is divided into two groups, and individuals allocate tokens between a private, a group-specific, and a collective good. We vary the marginal per capita return of the group-specific and collective good in order to manipulate the motivational within- and between group conflicts. A first experiment shows that a between-group conflict leads to within-group cooperation and particularly individuals with positive other-regarding preferences (prosocials) react to a between-group conflict by contributing to the group-specific good. Hence, paradoxically, individuals with positive other-regarding preferences may foster between-group conflicts. A second experiment reveals that prosocials' contributions to the group-specific or collective good vary as a function of the personal costs of within-group versus collective cooperation, supporting the weighted average social preference theory by Charness and Rabin (2002).

Keywords: between-group conflict; nested social dilemma; other-regarding preferences; local and global public goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-ger, nep-gth and nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2014-011

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