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Group Size Effect on Cooperation in One-Shot Social Dilemmas II: Curvilinear Effect

Author

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  • Valerio Capraro
  • Hélène Barcelo
Abstract
In a world in which many pressing global issues require large scale cooperation, understanding the group size effect on cooperative behavior is a topic of central importance. Yet, the nature of this effect remains largely unknown, with lab experiments insisting that it is either positive or negative or null, and field experiments suggesting that it is instead curvilinear. Here we shed light on this apparent contradiction by considering a novel class of public goods games inspired to the realistic scenario in which the natural output limits of the public good imply that the benefit of cooperation increases fast for early contributions and then decelerates. We report on a large lab experiment providing evidence that, in this case, group size has a curvilinear effect on cooperation, according to which intermediate-size groups cooperate more than smaller groups and more than larger groups. In doing so, our findings help fill the gap between lab experiments and field experiments and suggest concrete ways to promote large scale cooperation among people.

Suggested Citation

  • Valerio Capraro & Hélène Barcelo, 2015. "Group Size Effect on Cooperation in One-Shot Social Dilemmas II: Curvilinear Effect," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-11, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0131419
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131419
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    8. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Nardi, Chiara & Pizziol, Veronica, 2024. "Cooperation is unaffected by the threat of severe adverse events in public goods games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
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    12. Arnaud Tognetti & David Doat & Dimitri Dubois & Rustam Romaniuc, 2019. "Does the presence of a physically disabled person in the group increase cooperation? An experimental test of the empathyaltruism hypothesis," Working Papers halshs-02103832, HAL.
    13. Tverskoi, Denis & Senthilnathan, Athmanathan & Gavrilets, Sergey, 2021. "The dynamics of cooperation, power, and inequality in a group-structured society," SocArXiv 24svr, Center for Open Science.
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    15. Antoni Bosch-Domènech & Joaquim Silvestre, 2015. "The role of frames, numbers and risk in the frequency of cooperation," Economics Working Papers 1501, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

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