Daniel Eek

A conceptual analysis of the impact of travel demand management on private car use

A conceptual framework is presented that may be utilized when analyzing changes in household travel arising from the range of potential measures available to policy makers. The proposed framework draws on goal setting theory in order to understand how travel is influenced by the impact various travel demand management (TDM) measures have on time, cost, and convenience of travel options. Travel is understood from a perspective assuming that it is controlled by negative feedback functioning to minimize deviations from goals nested at different levels. The conceptual framework, with its basis in goal setting and control theories, is then applied to understanding strategic and operational choice related to travel as well as habitual travel. Finally, the proposed conceptual framework is used to highlight and focus attention on key research issues that ought to be addressed if our understanding of the impact of TDM measures on household travel, and private car use in particular, is to improve.

New Issues and Paradigms in Research on Social Dilemmas

1. Introduction. Part I - Individual Level: 2. Effects of Information Structure in a Step-Level, Public-Good Dilemma under a Real-Time Protocol 3. Towards an Analysis of Cooperation and Fairness that Excludes Concepts of Cooperative Game Theory. 4. How do We React to Feedback in Social Dilemmas? 5. A New Look at the Theory of Social Value Orientations: Prosocials neither Maximize Joint Outcomes nor Minimize Outcome Differences but Prefer Equal Outcomes Part II - Group Level 6. A Classification of Games by Player Type 7. A Recursive Model for Changing Justice Concerns in Social Dilemmas 8. Group-Based Trust and Cooperation in a Sequential Dilemma 9. Effects of Uncertainty in the Give- or Take Some (GOTS) Game Part III - Societal Level 10. Will Lessons from Small-Scale Social Dilemmas Scale Up? 11. The Emergence of Generalized Exchange via Indirect Reciprocity 12. Effectiveness of Coercive and Voluntary Institutional Solutions 13. Sheep, Mouton or Kivsa? Does Culture Influence Cooperation in Social Dilemmas? 14. Resurrecting the Leviathan in Social Dilemma Research 15. Towards a Comprehensive Model of Social Dilemmas 16. Promoting Cooperation in Social Dilemmas via Fairness Norms and Group Goals 17. Using Genetic Algorithms for the Study of Social Dilemmas

Prosocials prefer equal outcomes to maximizing joint outcomes.

Existing theories of social value orientations posit that prosocials maximize joint outcomes whereas proselfs maximize outcomes to themselves. Three studies employing a total of 157 undergraduates were conducted to test the alternative hypothesis that prosocials prefer equal outcomes to maximizing joint outcome. In study 1 participants completed the Triple-Dominance Measure of Social Values in which a fourth alternative that distributed the largest joint outcome unequally was added to the alternative that distributed the outcomes equally. In accordance with the hypothesis, prosocials preferred the equal-outcome alternative to the joint-outcome alternative. Study 2 confirmed and extended these results by demonstrating that prosocials preferred equal outcomes to larger joint outcomes that were unequally distributed but provided both with larger outcomes. Study 3 demonstrated that in a modified prisoners dilemma game, a preference for equal outcomes to a larger joint outcome resulted in that prosocials cooperated when they believed or knew that the other cooperated, and defected when they believed or knew that the other defected.

The Interplay Between Greed, Efficiency, and Fairness in Public-Goods Dilemmas

The Greed–Efficiency–Fairness hypothesis (H. A. M. Wilke, In European Review of Social Psychology, Wiley, New York, Vol. 2, pp. 165–187, 1991) states that people in resource dilemmas are greedy and wish to defect, but that greed is constrained by preferences for efficient resource use and fair distributions. This paper reviews research where the GEF hypothesis was generalized to public-goods dilemmas. Results from both surveys and experiments on peoples willingness to contribute to resources for social services were interpreted in light of the GEF hypothesis. Whereas earlier research on social dilemmas and fairness considerations have focused on the correlation between estimated fair and actual cooperation rates, the present results provide an extension where cooperation rates are influenced by perceived fairness of how a resource is distributed. Two experiments contribute further insights into the interplay, in terms of effects on cooperation, between greed, efficiency, and fairness. The collective consequences of individual choices were either highlighted or not (Experiment 1) and the outcome structure in prior social dilemma tasks was either collectively or individually framed (Experiment 2). These manipulations influenced (a) cooperation rates and (b) the extent to which decisions were based on greed, efficiency, or fairness.

The Effect of Distributive Justice on Willingness to Pay for Municipality Child Care: An Extension of the GEF Hypothesis

Public-goods dilemmas are characterized by conflicts between self-interest and the welfare of a group or society at large. Research has identified several factors that enhance cooperation in such dilemmas. However, less is known about how concern for distributive justice affects willingness to contribute in asymmetric public-goods dilemmas. To test the hypothesis that contributions to a common resource is related to perceived fairness, experiments were performed to investigate willingness to pay to the social service of child care in hypothetical societies. Experiment 1 aimed at replicating a previous survey study (Biel et al., 1997). Experiments 2 and 3 were extensions. In all three experiments subjects were asked to indicate how fair they considered different distributions of the quality of child care provided by their municipality. These distributions corresponded to the principles of equality, equity, and need. University students (32, 48, and 32 in the three experiments, respectively) served as subjects. Ratings of perceived fairness were positively related to willingness to pay. Other factors also positively related to willingness to pay included ability to pay, personal need, expected payment from others, and the number of households who had to contribute in order to maintain the quality. Furthermore, decreasing municipality size increased willingness to pay.

A New Look at the Theory of Social Value Orientations: Prosocials Neither Maximize Joint Outcome nor Minimize Outcome Differences but Prefer Equal Outcomes

A friend of one of this chapter’s authors once checked in at a conference hotel together with a colleague. The hotel was posh and expensive, but because the prices were heavily subsidized, both had made reservations for the best rooms (“class A”). However, something had gone wrong with the reservations. Only one of the best rooms was available, as well as one room with a somewhat lower standard, “class B,” and a few rooms with a considerably lower standard, “class C.” Given the subsidies, prices were the same irrespective of class, so there was clearly no incentive to choose anything but “class A.” The question was, who should take “class A” and who “class B”? None of the colleagues was likely to turn hostile on the other, so more or less simultaneously they honestly said, “Pick whatever room you want.” It was also clear that both wanted the nicer “class A.” But it was equally clear that none wanted it at the other’s expense. Hence, “class A” and “class B” lost their attraction, resulting in that both chose “class C.” Readers familiar with social value orientation theories know that irrespective of whether the friend and his colleague had an individualistic, a competitive, or a cooperative social value orientation, these theories would predict that they choose “class A” when given the opportunity and that no one chooses “class C.” However, both chose “class C.” Hence, current social value orientation theories cannot account for the outcome described. The aim of this chapter is to present empirical evidence pointing out that current social value orientation theories need to be revised in order to better explain the behavior of cooperators, which both persons in the example above then and now consider themselves to be. The theoretical revision put forward herein emphasizes the importance of equality for prosocials. The choice of “class C” in the anecdotal example did not reflect a preference for a low standard, but for an equal standard.

Promoting Cooperation in Social Dilemmas via Fairness Norms and Group Goals

In everyday life, people often encounter situations where their personal interests are at odds with the welfare of a larger collective to which they belong. What seems to be an individually rational choice may later have detrimental effects on the wellbeing of the group. Such conflicts of interest are referred to as social dilemmas (Dawes, 1980). Social dilemmas are formally defined as situations in which (1) individual outcomes for non-cooperative behavior or defection are larger than outcomes for cooperative behavior (favoring the collective interest), regardless of how other members in a collective behave; but (2) if all members adhere to this individually rational behavior, all members will acquire a lower payoff in the end as compared to if all had chosen to cooperate in the first place. The theoretical framework in research on decision making in social dilemmas was for a long time expected utility or rational choice theory (e.g., Camerer, 1990). According to this theory, people should choose the option with the largest expected utility. Thus, the rational (dominant) decision in a social dilemma is always to defect (e.g., Dawes, 1980), that is, to benefit the own interest. However, that greed and economic incentives are the primary drivers of choice has been shown to be too limited of a perspective (e.g., Dawes & Thaler, 1988). Instead, in order to understand decision making in social dilemmas, modern theorizing in psychology has adopted a multiple-motives approach according to which both economic and noneconomic motives are argued to influence choice behavior (e.g., De Cremer, 2002; Kerr, 1995; Tyler & Degoey, 1995). The present chapter adopts the latter approach and investigates the interplay between self-interest, fairness, and group goal in determining public-good allocation decisions. Whereas previous social dilemma research has investigated the antecedents of cooperation in terms of public-good provision (e.g., Eek & Biel, 2003), the present chapter focuses on antecedents of cooperation in terms of public-good allocation

Injustice for All or Just for Me? Social Value Orientation Predicts Responses to Own Versus Other’s Procedures

In two experiments, the authors investigated how differences in social value orientation predict evaluations of procedures that were accorded to self and others. Proselfs versus prosocials were either granted or denied an opportunity to voice an opinion in a decision-making process and witnessed how someone else was either granted or denied such an opportunity. Consistent with the hypothesis, procedural evaluations of both proselfs and prosocials were influenced by own procedure when other was granted voice, but only proselfs were influenced by own procedure when other was denied voice. These findings were particularly attributable to prosocials’ tendency to evaluate a situation where no-voice procedures are applied consistently between persons more positively than proselfs. It is concluded that proselfs are focused on procedural justice and injustice for self more than prosocials, whereas prosocials value equality in procedures more than proselfs—even when equality implies injustice for all.

Provision of Community Social Services: The Role of Distributive Fairness for Willingness to Pay

In an attempt to generalize the GEF hypothesis (H. A. M. Wilke, 1991) to a real-life public-goods dilemma, the main question asked in three studies was whether perceived distributive fairness affects willingness to pay for community child care. In the first study, attitudes towards whether the quality of child care should be distributed equally to all children, according to the needs of the children, or proportional to how much the children’s parents pay were surveyed in 1,840 Swedish parents living in five municipalities of different sizes. Preferences for different methods of payment were also measured. Although the results lent some support to the hypothesis that perceived distributive fairness plays a role, other factors were found to have a stronger effect on willingness to pay. The main survey results were replicated and extended in two additional studies employing a hypothetical society paradigm in which undergraduates were asked to respond to scenarios.

Is There a Pro-Self Component Behind the Prominence Effect? Individual Resource Allocation Decisions with Communities as Potential Beneficiaries

An important problem for decision-makers in society deals with the efficient and equitable allocation of scarce resources to individuals and groups. The significance of this problem is rapidly growing since there is a rising demand for scarce resources all over the world. Such resource dilemmas belong to a conceptually broader class of situations known as social dilemmas. In this type of dilemma, individual choices that appear ‘‘rational’’ often result in suboptimal group outcomes. In this article we study how people make monetary allocation decisions between the community where they live and a neighbouring community, with the aim of finding out to what extent these decisions are subject to biased over-weighting. The manuscript reports four experiments that deal with the way individuals make such allocation decisions when the potential beneficiaries are such communities. The specific goal of these experiments is to gauge the amount of bias in the weights that people assign to the various beneficiaries. Taken together, the results from all the four experiments suggest that making the gain of the neighbouring community prominent to a higher extent de-biases the outcomes (the prominence effect) compared to when own community gain is made prominent. Place identity is discussed as a potentially important factor in this connection. Hence, it may be argued that there seems to be some kind of a pro-self component that is able to explain a large part of the variance observed for the prominence effect. Connections between such a factor and in-group favouritism are discussed. A strength of the study was that these major results appeared to be quite robust when considered as task effects, as the salience of the manipulated context factors in the studies (in terms of reliable main or interaction effects) did not distort them.