Self-reliance crowds out group cooperation and increases wealth inequality
Jörg Gross1, Sonja Veistola2, Carsten K W De Dreu2,3
1Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands. mail@joerg-gross.net.
Nature Communications
|October 15, 2020
Summary
Self-reliance in public goods provision reduces cooperation. Asymmetries in self-reliance worsen social welfare and increase wealth inequality, complicating resource management.
Area of Science:
- Social Sciences
- Behavioral Economics
- Game Theory
Background:
- Public goods are essential for shared needs like safety and healthcare.
- Cooperation is crucial for public goods, but free-riding incentives can undermine it.
- Existing research often overlooks how individual self-reliance impacts collective action.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of self-reliance on cooperation in public goods provision.
- To examine the effects of varying levels of self-reliance on social welfare and wealth distribution.
- To understand the challenges self-reliance poses to governing common resources.
Main Methods:
- A laboratory experiment was designed to simulate a public safety problem.
- Participants were placed in groups and faced a choice between cooperative and individual solutions.
- Asymmetries in self-reliance were experimentally manipulated or observed.
Main Results:
- Self-reliance was found to significantly decrease cooperation levels within groups.
- Disparities in self-reliance led to reduced overall social welfare.
- Wealth inequality increased, with less dependent individuals benefiting more than highly dependent ones.
Conclusions:
- While self-reliance can bypass the free-rider problem, it introduces new complexities to public goods provision.
- Unequal self-reliance can exacerbate social and economic disparities.
- Effective governance of common resources must account for varying degrees of individual self-reliance.
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