Social motivation

Shazeen Attari, Elke Weber, Dave Krantz, Elizabeth Keenan

Study 1: Motivating and Demotivating Factors in Social Dilemmas (Shahzeen Attari, Elke Weber, Dave Krantz). This survey aims to investigate if reasons for acting pro-socially differ based on the particular real-world social dilemma the individual faces or differ based on the individual. It also aims to elicit reasons why people cooperate or defect across a variety of social dilemmas. This study aims to examine the motivational reasons for defection (non-cooperation) in public goods social dilemma situations. In this study, we aim to identify the most important reasons/motivations for defection to then understand how to encourage cooperation. We also aim to address whether motivations for defection are situation dependent (based on a particular public good social dilemma) or whether they are based on individual differences (i.e., a certain type of person would always like to free ride). The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons that are most important to individuals when they are faced with a social dilemma. Identifying barriers to cooperation in collective action situations can help policy makers and researchers understand what issues need to be addressed before action can take place.

Study 2: Cross-cultural Motivation (Shahzeen Attari, Elizabeth Keenan, Elke Weber). We plan to run a cross-cultural version of a new motivation survey that would use scenarios rather than real-world social dilemmas. We have identified unique reasons for cooperating and defecting (based on the motivation study), as well as interesting scenarios that would be valid across a variety of different cultures

Major Findings

• Not yet available.

CRED2 Award (2010-2015): Funding was provided under the cooperative agreement NSF SES-0951516 awarded to the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.