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Decision-Making in Public Good Dilemmas: Theory and Agent-Based

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Decision-Making in Public Good Dilemmas: Theory and Agent-Based Decision‐Making in Public Good Dilemmas: Theory and Agent‐Based Simulation Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie (Dr.‐phil.) im Fachbereich Humanwissenschaften der Universität Kassel vorgelegt von Friedrich Krebs Kassel, 2012 Erklärung Hiermit versichere ich, dass ich die vorliegende Dissertation selbstständig, ohne unerlaubte Hilfe Dritter angefertigt und andere als die in der Dissertation angegebenen Hilfsmittel nicht benutzt habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich oder sinngemäß aus veröffentlichten oder unveröffentlichten Schriften entnommen sind, habe ich als solche kenntlich gemacht. Dritte waren an der inhaltlich‐materiellen Erstellung der Dissertation nicht beteiligt; insbesondere habe ich hierfür nicht die Hilfe eines Promotionsberaters in Anspruch genommen. Kein Teil dieser Arbeit ist in einem anderen Promotions‐ oder Habilitationsverfahren verwendet worden. Friedrich Krebs Kassel, November 2012 ii Dipl.‐Math. Friedrich Krebs Center for Environmental Systems Research 34109 Kassel Germany Als Dissertation angenommen vom Fachbereich Humanwissenschaften der Universität Kassel auf Grund von Gutachten von Prof. Dr. Andreas Ernst als Erstgutachter und Prof. Dr. Björn Frank als Zweitgutachter Die Disputation fand am 30.4.2013 statt. iii Danksagung Die vorliegende Arbeit entstand im Rahmen der Projekte „CAVES“ und „KUBUS“ am Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR) der Universität Kassel. Für die Finanzierung danke ich der Europäischen Kommission und dem Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung. Mein besonderer Dank geht an meinen Erstgutachter und Betreuer Prof. Dr. Andreas Ernst. Er hat smir al Mathematiker und Modellierer die psychologische Dimension des Gegenstands meiner Forschung klar gemacht und mir dabei immer die Freiheit gelassen, meine Sicht der Dinge zu entwickeln. Außerdem möchte ich mich herzlich bei meinem Zweitgutachter Prof. Dr. Björn Frank für die Begutachtung der Arbeit und das Feedback bedanken. Weiterhin gilt mein Dank meinen Kolleginnen und Kollegen am CESR für die vielen interessanten Diskussionen und wertvollen Anregungen. Zu nennen sind insbesondere Michael Elbers und Sascha Holzhauer, mit denen ich bei der Modellierung der beiden Fallstudien eng zusammengearbeitet habe. Urs Wenzel und Ramune Pansa danke ich für ihre beständig offenen Ohren für meine psychologischen Fragen. Für das Korrekturlesen der Arbeit und ihre konstruktiven Kommentare danke ich Sascha Holzhauer und Urs Wenzel gleichermaßen. Besonders danke ich Inge Hessenauer für das abschließende Korrekturlesen des Gesamtwerks. Das Wichtigste jedoch zuletzt: Die Forschungsarbeit, die hier dokumentiert ist, hätte mir nicht halb so viel Spaß gemacht, wenn sie nicht regelmäßig durch mein hochgradig unterhaltsames, lustiges und forderndes Familienleben unterbrochen worden wäre – oder umgekehrt. Der Dank hierfür geht an Sandra, Luis, Amelie und Bruno. iv Zusammenfassung In vielen Zusammenhängen finden sich Menschen in Situationen wieder, in denen sie die Wahl haben zwischen Verhaltensweisen, die einem kollektiven Zweck dienen oder solchen, die die persönlichen Interessen befriedigen und das Kollektiv ignorieren. In manchen Fällen wird das unterliegende soziale Dilemma (Dawes, 1980) gelöst und kollektive Aktion (Olson, 1965) gezeigt. In anderen Fällen bleibt die soziale Mobilisierung erfolglos. Der zentrale Inhalt der Forschung zu sozialen Dilemmata ist die Identifikation und das Verständnis der Mechanismen, die die beobachtete Kooperation erzeugen und damit das soziale Dilemma auflösen. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, zu diesem Problembereich für die Unterklasse der Gemeingutdilemmata beizutragen. Um dieses Ziel zu erreichen, werden die wichtigsten Befunde aus existierenden Vorarbeiten rekapituliert und Anforderungen an die Theorie‐ und Methodenbeiträge dieser Arbeit abgeleitet. Insbesondere nimmt die Arbeit die dynamischen Mobilisierungsprozesse in den Blick, die kollektive Aktion fördern oder hemmen. Grundlage ist die Einsicht, dass der Erfolg oder Misserfolg der erforderlichen sozialen Mobilisierung zentral determiniert ist durch im Allgemeinen heterogene individuelle Präferenzen der Mitglieder der bereitstellenden Gruppe, die soziale Struktur, in die die handelnden Individuen eingebunden sind und die Einbettung der Individuen in einen ökonomischen, politischen oder biophysikalischen Kontext. Um diesen Aspekten und den involvierten Dynamiken Rechnung zu tragen, ist die Methode der Wahl ist die agentenbasierte Simulation sozialer Systeme. In besonderer Weise zielführend sind solche Agentenmodelle, die für Simulation von menschlichem Verhalten auf geeignete psychologische Handlungstheorie zurückgreifen. Diese Arbeit entwickelt die Handlungstheorie HAPPenInGS (Heterogeneous Agents Providing Public Goods) und zeigt deren Einbettung in verschiedene Multiagentensimulationen. Der besondere Mehrwert dieses methodischen Zugangs wird in der Arbeit demonstriert: Ausgehend von einer Theorie des individuellen Handelns werden in den Simulationen kollektive Verhaltensweisen in ihrer Genese beobachtet, analysiert und in Szenarienanalysen bewertet. Diese Klasse von Resultaten liefert Einblicke, die dem klassischen empirischen Zugang verschlossen bleiben und aus denen politikrelevante Empfehlungen motiviert werden können. v Summary In many real world contexts individuals find themselves in situations where they have to decide between options of behaviour that serve a collective purpose or behaviours which satisfy one’s private interests, ignoring the collective. In some cases the underlying social dilemma (Dawes, 1980) is solved and we observe collective action (Olson, 1965). In others social mobilisation is unsuccessful. The central topic of social dilemma research is the identification and understanding of mechanisms which yield to the observed cooperation and therefore resolve the social dilemma. It is the purpose of this thesis to contribute this research field for the case of public good dilemmas. To do so, existing work that is relevant to this problem domain is reviewed and a set of mandatory requirements is derived which guide theory and method development of the thesis. In particular, the thesis focusses on dynamic processes of social mobilisation which can foster or inhibit collective action. The basic understanding is that success or failure of the required process of social mobilisation is determined by heterogeneous individual preferences of the members of a providing group, the social structure in which the acting individuals are contained, and the embedding of the individuals in economic, political, biophysical, or other external contexts. To account for these aspects and for the involved dynamics the methodical approach of the thesis is computer simulation, in particular agent‐based modelling and simulation of social systems. Particularly conductive are agent models which ground the simulation of human behaviour in suitable psychological theories of action. The thesis develops the action theory HAPPenInGS (Heterogeneous Agents Providing Public Goods) and demonstrates its embedding into different agent‐based simulations. The thesis substantiates the particular added value of the methodical approach: Starting out from a theory of individual behaviour, in simulations the emergence of collective patterns of behaviour becomes observable. In addition, the underlying collective dynamics may be scrutinised and assessed by scenario analysis. The results of such experiments reveal insights on processes of social mobilisation which go beyond classical empirical approaches and yield policy recommendations on promising intervention measures in particular. vi Table of contents Decision‐Making in Public Good Dilemmas: Theory and Agent‐Based Simulation .................... i 1 Introduction........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Motivation and objectives ........................................................................................... 1 1.2 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................. 2 2 Theoretical background, related work and implications ................................................... 4 2.1 Social dilemmas and public goods ............................................................................... 5 2.1.1 Game‐theoretic background and empirical evidence .......................................... 5 2.1.2 Factors influencing cooperation ........................................................................ 11 2.1.3 Synthesis I: Systems overview ............................................................................ 18 2.1.4 Synthesis II: Requirements A to D of research method ..................................... 22 2.2 Agent‐based social simulation in the domain of social dilemmas ............................ 25 2.2.1 Overview of agent‐based social simulation ....................................................... 25 2.2.2 Synthesis III: The potential of agent‐based social simulation in the domain of social dilemmas ................................................................................................................ 28 2.2.3 Agent‐based social simulation research on social dilemmas ............................. 29 2.2.4 Synthesis IV: Requirements E and F of research method .................................. 36 2.3 Psychology of decision‐making .................................................................................
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