Decision-Making in Social Dilemmas: Positive and Negative Framing, Payoff Structure, and Affect
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: Positive and negative framing, whether in the form of give-some vs. take-some decisions or outcomes involving rewards vs. penalties, can impact people's level of cooperation in social dilemma games.Generally, people are more cooperative when either decisions or outcomes involve gains rather than losses, but a review of the literature indicates that this effect is far from universal.The research presented here proposes that the influence of framing on decisionmaking in social dilemmas may be mediated by mood, and may also depend on whether the payoff structure is presented as a continuous or step-level dilemma.Two studies were designed to ( 1) examine the impact of decision framing and outcome framing on level of cooperation in both step-level and continuous social dilemmas, (2) examine the impact of these factors on mood, and (3) see how mood mediates the effect of framing on level of cooperation.Study 1 showed that cooperation is higher when the decision involves taking than when it involves giving, but only in a continuous social dilemma with a positively framed outcome.Study 2 showed a similar effect, but only among men.Although penalties increased anxiety, mood did not influence decision-making.In both studies, people were more cooperative than expected in continuous games.Taken together, these studies illustrate limiting conditions for the elusive effect of higher cooperation in take-some than give-some games, and demonstrate differences between step-level and continuous dilemmas.
Author: Amy L. Brown
Institution: Miami University
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2596091796