Group Goals and Fairness in Public Good Dilemmas

Abstract: Social groups implicitly or explicitly strive to achieve various goals that pervade most activities within the group. In social dilemma and game theoretic research, it has been posited that the goal is to achieve the highest possible monetary outcome for the individual or the group. Yet, important group goals may also include future enjoyable social relations, a sense of responsibility, and a concern for others. This thesis argues that research on public good dilemmas need to address the issue of what is a preferred distribution of the public good. This is the focus of the reported research whereas previous research has focused on public good provision. It is assumed that preferences for distributing the public good to group members are related to what goals the group is trying to reach. In Study I allocation preferences in step-level symmetric public good dilemmas were investigated. Experiment 1 revealed that fairness conceptions were related to how participants allocated the public good. Experiment 2 examined the impact of the goals of economic productivity, social concern, and harmony on participants? allocation preferences. Groups with economic productivity as their goal allocated the resource according to equity, groups with social concern as their goal allocated the resource according to equal treatment, and groups with harmony as their goal allocated the resource according to equal final outcomes. These findings suggest that in a public good dilemma, people apply the allocation principle that serves a particular group goal, independently of their perceptions of fairness. In Study II the prediction was tested that salience of fairness and group goal reduces the influence of self-interest on preferences for allocation principles. In Experiment 1, it was found that perceived fairness of allocation principles increased perceived instrumentality of the principles. Self-interest did however not have any effect. In Experiment 2, economic productivity as the group goal increased allocations according to equity, and the group goal of social concern increased allocations according to equality and equal final outcomes. Self-interest had no effect. Taken together, the results of the empirical studies provide support for that both fairness and group goal influence allocation preferences in public good dilemmas.