Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Abstract
The current social dilemma literature lacks theoretical consensus regarding how individuals behave when facing multiple simultaneous social dilemmas. The divided-loyalty hypothesis, from organizational theory, predicts that cooperation will decline as individuals experience multiple social dilemmas with different compared to the same group members. The conditional-cooperation hypothesis, from behavioral economics, predicts that cooperation will increase as individuals experience multiple social dilemmas with different compared to the same group members. We employ a laboratory experiment to create consensus between these literatures and find support for the conditional-cooperation hypothesis. The positive effect of interacting with different group members comes from participants having an opportunity to shift their cooperative behavior from the less cooperative to the more cooperative group.
Recommended Citation
McCarter, M.W., Savikhin, A., and Sheremeta, R. (2014). "Divided loyalists or conditional cooperators? Creating consensus about cooperation in multiple simultaneous social dilemmas," Group & Organization Management, 39(6) 744–771. DOI: 10.1177/1059601114551606
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
The authors
Comments
This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Group & Organization Management, volume 39, issue 6, in 2014 following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at DOI: 10.1177/1059601114551606.