The importance of cognitive diversity for sustaining the commons

Jacopo A. Baggio (), Jacob Freeman, Thomas R. Coyle, Tam The Nguyen, Dale Hancock, Karrie E. Elpers, Samantha Nabity, H. J. Francois Dengah and David Pillow
Additional contact information
Jacopo A. Baggio: University of Central Florida
Jacob Freeman: Social Work, and Anthropology, Utah State University
Thomas R. Coyle: University of Texas at San Antonio
Tam The Nguyen: Utah State University
Dale Hancock: University of Texas at San Antonio
Karrie E. Elpers: University of Texas at San Antonio
Samantha Nabity: Social Work, and Anthropology, Utah State University
H. J. Francois Dengah: Social Work, and Anthropology, Utah State University
David Pillow: University of Texas at San Antonio

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Cognitive abilities underpin the capacity of individuals to build models of their environment and make decisions about how to govern resources. Here, we test the functional intelligences proposition that functionally diverse cognitive abilities within a group are critical to govern common pool resources. We assess the effect of two cognitive abilities, social and general intelligence, on group performance on a resource harvesting and management game involving either a negative or a positive disturbance to the resource base. Our results indicate that under improving conditions (positive disturbance) groups with higher general intelligence perform better. However, when conditions deteriorate (negative disturbance) groups with high competency in both general and social intelligence are less likely to deplete resources and harvest more. Thus, we propose that a functional diversity of cognitive abilities improves how effectively social groups govern common pool resources, especially when conditions deteriorate and groups need to re-evaluate and change their behaviors.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08549-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-08549-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08549-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().