Top

Social Justice Research

Published in:

30-11-2017

Justice Sensitivity and Cooperation Dynamics in Repeated Public Good Games

Authors: Thomas Schlösser, Sebastian Berger, Detlef Fetchenhauer

Published in: Social Justice Research | Issue 1/2018

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

It is frequently observed that despite individual incentives to free ride, humans decide to cooperate with each other to increase social payoffs. In the current research, we address the effects of individual differences in justice sensitivity on cooperation. Using incentivized repeated public good games, we find that individual differences in justice sensitivity—the ease of perceiving, remembering, and reacting to injustice from the perspectives of an observer, beneficiary, or perpetrator, but not victim—substantially predicts cooperation in the absence of a punishment option. In contrast, when costly punishment is allowed for, cooperation becomes strategic as it also aims at avoiding subsequent punishment. If such a sanctioning mechanism is in place, justice sensitivity no longer predicts cooperation. The results regarding the degree of cooperation as reaction to initial non-cooperation of one’s counterparts highlight the role of justice-concerning personality traits for the sufficient provision of public goods, as sanctioning institutions are not always possible, effective, or suitable.

next article Recalling an Unfair Experience Reduces Adolescents’ Dishonest Behavioral Intentions: The Mediating Role of Justice Sensitivity

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Available only for authorised users

For each perspective, a self-report scale has been developed (see “Appendix”; Schmitt et al., 2005, 2010). In many studies, the specificity of the perspectives of justice sensitivity was empirically supported (Fetchenhauer & Huang 2004; Gollwitzer, Rothmund, Pfeiffer, & Ensenbach 2009; Gollwitzer, Schmitt, Schalke, Maes, & Baer 2005; Lotz, Baumert, Schlösser, Gresser, & Fetchenhauer 2011a; Schmitt et al. 2005).

Unfortunately, due to an error in the z-Tree program code regarding the costs of punishment in the first session of the punishment condition, data from 20 participants could not be included in the analysis, resulting in unequal cells between conditions. The pattern of all reported results did not change dependent on the inclusion of these cases.

Almakiasa, S., & Weiss, A. (2012). Ultimatum Game behavior in light of attachment theory. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33(3), 515–526.CrossRef

Arbak, E., & Villeval, M. C. (2013). Voluntary leadership: Motivation and influence. Social Choice and Welfare, 40(3), 635–662.CrossRef

Au, W. T., & Komorita, S. S. (2002). Effects of initial choices in the prisoner’s dilemma. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 15(4), 343–359.CrossRef

Balliet, D., Parks, C., & Joireman, J. (2009). Social value orientation and cooperation in social dilemmas: A meta-analysis. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 12(4), 533–574.CrossRef

Baumert, A., Halmburger, A., & Schmitt, M. (2013). Interventions against norm violations: Dispositional determinants of self-reported and real moral courage. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(8), 1053–1068.CrossRefPubMed

Baumert, A., Schlösser, T., & Schmitt, M. (2014). Economic Games: A performance-based assessment of fairness and altruism. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30, 178–192.CrossRef

Blanco, M., Engelmann, D., & Normann, H. T. (2011). A within-subject analysis of other-regarding preferences. Games and Economic Behavior, 72, 321–338.CrossRef

Camerer, C. (2003). Behavioral game theory: Experiments in strategic interaction. Princeton University Press: Princeton.

Carlsmith, K. M., Darley, J. M., & Robinson, P. H. (2002). Why do we punish?: Deterrence and just deserts as motives for punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(2), 284.CrossRefPubMed

Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126.CrossRef

Deutsch, M. (1975). Equity, equality, and need: What determines which value will be used as the basis of distributive justice? Journal of Social issues, 31(3), 137–149.CrossRef

Eriksson, K., Strimling, P., & Ehn, M. (2013). Ubiquity and efficiency of restrictions on informal punishment rights. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 11, 17–34.CrossRef

Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000a). Fairness and retaliation: The economics of reciprocity. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), 159–181.CrossRef

Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000b). Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 90(4), 980–994.CrossRef

Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2002). Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature, 415(6868), 137–140.CrossRefPubMed

Fetchenhauer, D., & Huang, X. (2004). Justice sensitivity and distributive decisions in experimental games. Personality and Individual Differences, 36(5), 1015–1029.CrossRef

Fischbacher, U. (2007). z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 10(2), 171–178.CrossRef

Fischbacher, U., Gächter, S., & Fehr, E. (2001). Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment. Economics Letters, 71(3), 397–404.CrossRef

Gächter, S., Nosenzo, D., Renner, E., & Sefton, M. (2010). Who makes a good leader? Cooperativeness, optimism, and leading by example. Economic Inquiry, 50(4), 953–967.CrossRef

Gollwitzer, M., & Rothmund, T. (2011). What exactly are victim-sensitive persons sensitive to? Journal of Research in Personality, 45(5), 448–455.CrossRef

Gollwitzer, M., Rothmund, T., Pfeiffer, A., & Ensenbach, C. (2009). Why and when justice sensitivity leads to pro-and antisocial behavior. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(6), 999–1005.CrossRef

Gollwitzer, M., Schmitt, M., Schalke, R., Maes, J., & Baer, A. (2005). Asymmetrical effects of justice sensitivity perspectives on prosocial and antisocial behavior. Social Justice Research, 18(2), 183–201.CrossRef

Greiner, B. (2015). Subject pool recruitment procedures: Organizing experiments with ORSEE. Journal of the Economic Science Association, 1(1), 114–125.CrossRef

Gürerk, Ö., Irlenbusch, B., & Rockenbach, B. (2006). The competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions. Science, 312(5770), 108–111.CrossRefPubMed

Güth, W. (1995). On ultimatum bargaining experiments: A personal review. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 27(3), 329–344.CrossRef

Hammond, R. G., & Morrill, T. (2016). Personality traits and bidding behavior in competing auctions. Journal of Economic Psychology, 57, 39–55.CrossRef

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243–1248.CrossRefPubMed

Herrmann, B., Thöni, C., & Gächter, S. (2008). Antisocial punishment across societies. Science, 319(5868), 1362–1367.CrossRefPubMed

Hilbig, B. E., Zettler, I., & Heydasch, T. (2011). Personality, punishment and public goods: Strategic shifts towards cooperation as a matter of dispositional honesty–humility. European Journal of Personality, 26(3), 245–254.CrossRef

Hilbig, B. E., Zettler, I., Leist, F., & Heydasch, T. (2013). It takes two: Honesty–humility and agreeableness differentially predict active versus reactive cooperation. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(5), 598–603.CrossRef

Huseman, R. C., Hatfield, J. D., & Miles, E. W. (1987). A new perspective on equity theory: The equity sensitivity construct. Academy of Management Review, 12, 222–234.

Kurzban, R., & Houser, D. (2001). Individual differences in cooperation in a circular public goods game. European Journal of Personality, 15, 37–52.CrossRef

Lerner, M. J. (1981). The justice motive in human relations. In The justice motive in social behavior (pp. 11–35). Springer.

Levati, M. V., Sutter, M., & Van Der Heijden, E. (2007). Leading by example in a public goods experiment with heterogeneity and incomplete information. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 51(5), 793–818.CrossRef

Lotz, S., Baumert, A., Schlösser, T., Gresser, F., & Fetchenhauer, D. (2011a). Individual differences in third-party interventions: How justice sensitivity shapes altruistic punishment. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 4(4), 297–313.CrossRef

Lotz, S., Okimoto, T. G., Schlösser, T., & Fetchenhauer, D. (2011b). Punitive versus compensatory reactions to injustice: Emotional antecedents to third-party interventions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(2), 477–480.CrossRef

Lotz, S., Schlösser, T., Cain, D. M., & Fetchenhauer, D. (2013). The (in)stability of social preferences: Using justice sensitivity to predict when altruism collapses. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 93, 141–148.CrossRef

Lovaš, L., & Wolt, R. (2002). Sensitivity to injustice in the context of some personality traits. Studia Psychologica, 44, 125–131.

Marwell, G., & Ames, R. E. (1979). Experiments on the provision of public goods. I. Resources, interest, group size, and the free-rider problem. The American Journal of Sociology, 84(6), 1335–1360.CrossRef

Mikula, G., Petri, B., & Tanzer, N. (1990). What people regard as unjust: Types and structures of everyday experiences of injustice. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20(2), 133–149.CrossRef

Mischel, W. (1973). Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality. Psychological Review, 80(4), 252–283.CrossRefPubMed

Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102(2), 246–268.CrossRefPubMed

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Ostrom, E., Walker, J., & Gardner, R. (1992). Covenants with and without a sword: Self-governance is possible. The American Political Science Review, 86, 404–417.CrossRef

Préget, R., Nguyen-Van, P., & Willinger, M. (2016). Who are the voluntary leaders? Experimental evidence from a sequential contribution game. Theory and Decision, 81(4), 581–599.CrossRef

Schmitt, M., Baumert, A., Gollwitzer, M., & Maes, J. (2010). The justice sensitivity inventory: Factorial validity, location in the personality facet space, demographic pattern, and normative data. Social Justice Research, 23(2), 211–238.CrossRef

Schmitt, M., Eid, M., & Maes, J. (2003). Synergistic person x situation interaction in distributive justice behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(1), 141–147.CrossRefPubMed

Schmitt, M., Gollwitzer, M., Maes, J., & Arbach, D. (2005). Justice sensitivity: Assessment and location in the personality space. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 21(3), 202.CrossRef

Schmitt, M. J., Neumann, R., & Montada, L. (1995). Dispositional sensitivity to befallen injustice. Social Justice Research, 8(4), 385–407.CrossRef

Snyder, M., & Ickes, W. (1985). Personality and social behavior. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology. Special fields and applications (3rd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 883–948). New York: Random House.

Stavrova, O., & Schlösser, T. (2015). Solidarity and social justice: Effect of individual differences in justice sensitivity on solidary behavior. European Journal of Personality, 29(1), 2–16.CrossRef

Stavrova, O., Schlösser, T., & Baumert, A. (2013). Life satisfaction and job‐seeking behavior of the unemployed: The effect of individual differences in justice sensitivity. Applied Psychology: An International Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12009.

Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2000). Cooperation in groups: Procedural justice, social identity, and behavioral engagement. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

Van Lange, P. A. (1999). The pursuit of joint outcomes and equality in outcomes: An integrative model of social value orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(2), 337–349.CrossRef

Weiss, H. M., Suckow, K., & Cropanzano, R. (1999). Effects of justice conditions on discrete emotions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(5), 786.CrossRef

Wijen, R., & van den Bos, K. (2010). Toward a better understanding of the justice judgment process: The influence of fair and unfair events on state justice sensitivity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 1294–1301.CrossRef

Yamagishi, T. (1986). The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(1), 110–116.CrossRef

Title: Justice Sensitivity and Cooperation Dynamics in Repeated Public Good Games
Authors: Thomas Schlösser
Sebastian Berger
Detlef Fetchenhauer
Publication date: 30-11-2017
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Social Justice Research / Issue 1/2018
Print ISSN: 0885-7466
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-017-0300-7

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 1/2018

Recalling an Unfair Experience Reduces Adolescents’ Dishonest Behavioral Intentions: The Mediating Role of Justice Sensitivity

Russian Adaptations of General and Personal Belief in a Just World Scales: Validation and Psychometric Properties

Contributive Justice: An Exploration of a Wider Provision of Meaningful Work

Brazilian Adolescents’ Just World Beliefs and Its Relationships with School Fairness, Student Conduct, and Legal Authorities