Jane Sell

“Liar, Liar... ” Cheap Talk and Reputation in Repeated Public Goods Settings

An abstract public goods setting is considered in which individually rational strategies lead to collectively irrational outcomes. Theorists argue that individual reputations can provide an important means for solving repeated versions of that public goods game. Numerous experimental findings also show that preplay communication leads to higher rates of contributions to public goods. The authors investigate whether preplay communication and reputational information aid in solving collective actions problems by using laboratory experimental methods to disentangle the separate effects of both signals and past behavioral information. The results are discouraging. Increased information about the past behavior of subjects, coupled with preplay signaling, decreases levels of contributions to the public good. These results point to how quickly group distrust takes root and the consequences of that distrust.

Investigating Conflict, Power, and Status Within and Among Groups

This article investigates the concepts and perspectives of conflict, power, and status developed across the disciplines of political science, psychology, and sociology. Although the different disciplines, at times, have different assumptions about actors and interactions, there is a great deal of similarity. This similarity allows one to uncover some general principles that apply to group behavior. This article advocates and illustrates using institutional rules to analyze the research within and across areas.

Comparing Public Goods with Common Pool Resources: Three Experiments

We examine whether public goods and common pool resources generate equivalent levels of cooperation when the payoffs are the same. Two theoretical perspectives seem to contradict each other on the equivalence issue. Prospect theory implies that settings involving common pool resources should generate higher levels of cooperation than settings involving public goods; expected utility theory implies that the two settings should generate the same levels of cooperation. We conduct three experiments to examine the predictions of nonequivalence by prospect theory, and find that common pool resources generate higher levels of cooperation on first trials in both static and dynamic contexts. If no interaction with other group members is added, the higher levels of cooperation in resource settings remain in static settings. In dynamic settings, however, where the resource itself changes, the higher levels of cooperation in resource settings are short-lived. In both dynamic and static settings, the addition of group interaction seems to eliminate the initial differences in levels of cooperation.

Understanding and Improving Attitudinal Research in Wildlife Sciences

Abstract Human dimension research published regarding public attitudes about wildlife or natural resource management often reflects an inadequate understanding on the part of the authors regarding attitudes, their social psychological frameworks, and their relationship to behaviors. In this paper we define attitudes, examine their relationship to behaviors, and examine some theoretical frameworks for attitudes. Additionally, we examine some shortcomings we believe are common in wildlife attitudinal research and make suggestions to improve the quality and consistency of the work.

The influence of outcome messages on reference prices

Abstract This experiment investigated ways in which expected or reference price for a public leisure service might be altered. Two hundred twenty‐four subjects were randomly assigned to one of six treatment groups. Each subject received a message communicating potential outcomes associated with paying fees for a hypothetical aerobics program. Subsequent changes in reference prices were monitored. Subjects were particularly responsive to the message suggesting that other participants would suffer if the subjects failed to generate sufficient revenues from fees to meet their own program costs. The mean reference price reported by this group was 41 % greater than that reported by the control group. The message that focused on personal benefit arising from payment of fees also significantly elevated reference price levels. The lowest prices were reported by those who received only program information (the control group) and those who were told that they might lose access to hypothetical program opportunities....

USING TASK DEFINITION TO MODIFY RACIAL INEQUALITY WITHIN TASK GROUPS

This study developed and tested a particular strategy to modify racial inequality in task groups. The strategy is suggested within an expectation states framework: If a group task is presented as one comprised of many skills that do not necessarily relate to one another, this complexity will decrease the effects of race. Thirty groups of three women, one black woman, and two white women were randomly assigned to either a condition in which the group members knew only that some people did better than others on the task (the baseline condition) or a condition in which the complexity of the task was emphasized (the incompatible complexity condition). In fact, only the descriptions of the task varied; the task was exactly the same in both conditions. Relative to the baseline condition, incompatible complexity decreased the inequality between black and white people for the time of verbal interaction and for procedural operations. The results suggest that changes in the perceived structure of the task can decrease inequality. Further, changes in inequality did not lead to decreased group effectiveness.

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Public Good and Resource Good Settings*

Social dilemmas are situations in which individual incentives and group incentives conflict. Public goods sustained by contributions of time and money, such as public television, and resource goods sustained by restraint from taking, such as rainforests, represent two types of social dilemmas. In this study, we examine whether the two types of social dilemmas generate the same amount of cooperation when the costs and benefits are exactly the same. Rational choice perspectives suggest equivalent levels of cooperation, whereas alternative perspectives such as prospect theory suggest that resource goods might generate greater cooperation. Combining prospect theory and strategic game theory, we predict that resource good settings will have higher levels of cooperation. We test the predictions in two different cultures: the United States and the Peoples Republic of China. We find consistent patterns: in both countries, group members were more cooperative when faced with resource goods dilemmas than when faced with public goods dilemmas.

The effect of equating status characteristics on the generalization process

The generalization of information for decision making is a major concern for social psychology. This paper investigates how such generalization is affected by information that equates the actors involved in decision making. We find that when the information that equates actors is diffuse status (age, sex, occupation) it does not seem to combine with or affect information that differentiates actors. Also, it appears that when actors are ranked on their performance abilities, both highand low-rank actors ignore equating characteristics; however, their rank does seem to affect the way in which they generalize differentiating information.

Introduction to Deception Debate

he debate that follows is part of an ongo-ing discussion about the meaning andimportance of deception in research.While the authors emphasize experimentalresearch, deception is an issue in all social-science methodologies. Such debates areimportant signals that our field considers howchanging technology, research questions, andrelationships reflect on and potentially modifyour understanding of what is critical for bothresearch and ethics. From the sociology of sci-ence, we know that such debates must beencouraged as they are critical for preventingflawed reasoning and stalled analysis.Definitions of deception stress the inten-tional misrepresentation of the study to theparticipants. Obviously researchers rarelyfully explain the purpose and hypotheses ofthe study; incomplete explanations are notdeceptions. But deception can take differentforms in different methods. In fieldwork, theactual identity and purpose of the researchermay be OhiddenO and result in deception (fordiscussions, see Allen 1997; Ellis 1995;Mitchell 1990). In experiments, false informa-tion may be presented as true. Consequently,one way to think about deception is related toviolation of informed consent. If the study isnot fully represented to the participant, he orshe is prevented from providing a consent thatis truly informed.The lack of informed consent helps clari-fy both the ethical and the research impor-tance issues. In many ways, the social contractbetween the educator, clinician, or researcherand the participant is a trust relationship, andit can be argued that this relationship is violat-ed by deception if the costs outweigh the ben-efits. When Institutional Review Boards(IRBs) consider this issue, both short-termand long-term costs and benefits are consid-ered, although the emphasis is usually onimmediate calculation about participation in astudy. (Hegtvedt 2007 offers a thorough dis-cussion of IRB concerns.) In such initial cal-culations, the costs most often involve time,privacy, or potential psychic or physical harm.The benefits are also heavily weighted onimmediate benefits; these could be monetary,or potential physical or psychic well-being.Future experience and outcome are also con-sidered in the cost/benefit analysis. This con-sideration provides the basis for two quite dif-ferent views represented in this debate. Forboth views, another aspect of the social con-tract, the research field itself, becomes impor-tant.One view, expressed by Hertwig andOrtmann and most experimental economists(for example, Holt 2007), posits that if sub-jects have been deceived, it is reasonable forthem to expect to be deceived in other studies.If participants expect to be deceived and con-sequently do not believe the manipulations,then the very strength of the experiment, con-trol, is destroyed. Thus, it can be argued thatdeception in one experiment can contaminatethe participant pool for future experiments. Ifthis is the case, then there should be a prohibi-tion of most deception. Such a prohibition isnot based principally on the ethical relation-ship to the participant but on the ethical rela-tionship to the research field. (It should benoted that one purely practical solution mightbe to screen for those who have been in suchstudies)Another view, favoring at least limited useof deception, addresses the ethical and re-search importance issues from a different per-spective. The ethical issue in deception relatesto how the participants are treated after thestudy is completed and relates to the obliga-tion for careful, respectful, and thorough

SOURCES OF LEGITIMATION AND THEIR EFFECTS ON GROUP ROUTINES: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

The use of routines in the decision-making process of individuals, groups and organizations is a well accepted yet taken for granted phenomenon. One goal of organizations is to develop group routines that are efficient, but at the same time flexible. However, this presents a paradox because routines that are efficient at one point in time, or for a particular task, may persist, be unquestioned, and become increasingly inefficient for the group and the organization. This chapter develops a formal theory that describes the processes by which the legitimation of particular group structures impacts the development and use of group routines. The theory presented draws from theories of legitimation, expectation states theory, and institutional theory. The theory formally depicts three sources of legitimation: a referential belief structure (set of cultural beliefs) about expertise and leadership, authorization or superordinate support of a leader, and endorsement (support by group) of a leader. Specifically, the theory addresses: (1) how different sources of legitimation make groups more or less hierarchical; and (2) how the different sources of legitimation make group routines more or less flexible.