Efficacy, Beliefs, and Investment in Step-Level Public Goods

Jacob Dijkstra*, Jaap Oude Mulders

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
97 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

A central concept for understanding social dilemma behavior is the efficacy of an actor's cooperative behavior in terms of increasing group well-being. We report a decision and game theoretical analysis of efficacy in step-level public goods (SPGs). Previous research shows a positive relation between efficacy and contributions to SPGs and explains this relation by a purely motivational account. We show, however, that from a decision and game theory perspective an increasing relationship is not general, but only follows from very specific assumptions about players' information and beliefs. We offer 3 examples of how the predicted efficacy-contribution relation depends on players' information and beliefs. We discuss the implications of our results for the social psychology of efficacy in social dilemmas.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)285-301
Number of pages17
JournalThe Journal of Mathematical Sociology
Volume38
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2-Oct-2014

Keywords

  • beliefs
  • step-level public goods
  • information
  • social dilemmas
  • efficacy
  • Bayesian equilibrium
  • SOCIAL DILEMMAS
  • INTERGROUP COMPETITION
  • COLLECTIVE ACTION
  • GROUP-SIZE
  • PROVISION
  • COOPERATION
  • COMMUNICATION
  • COMMITMENT

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