Social dilemmas: When self-control benefits cooperation

Citation

Martinsson P, Myrseth KOR & Wollbrant C (2014) Social dilemmas: When self-control benefits cooperation. Journal of Economic Psychology, 45, pp. 213-236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2014.09.004

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 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 indicate that it is important to understand the role of self-control in cooperation.

Keywords
cooperation; self control; pro-social behaviour; public good experiment;

Journal
Journal of Economic Psychology: Volume 45