111 VI TABLES 1.1 Factors Influencing Cooperation/Resource Management Efficiency in Commons Dilemmas ..... 17 5.1 Privatization Studies: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics ....................... 113 5.2 Resource Use Studies: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics ............................ 120 5.3 Social Identity Studies: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics ....................... 131 5.4 Social Value Studies: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics ............................ 137 5.5 Communication Studies: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics .................... 147 5.6 Public versus Private Choice: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics .................... 159 5.7 Resource Pool Feedback: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics ....................... 163 5.8 Group Size Studies: Overall Effect Size and Average Effect Sizes for Subgroupings of Study Characteristics ............................ 166 6.1 Overall Effect Sizes and Weighted Effect Sizes for Factors Influencing Cooperation/Resource Management Efficiency in Commons Dilemmas .... 182 vix FIGURES 2.1 Figure 1: Long-Run Sustainable Yield Curve....43 2.2 Figure 2: Cost and Total Revenue in a Closed Fishery ..................................... 44 2.3 Figure 3: Cost and Total Revenue in an Open Fishery ..................................... 47 2.4 Figure 4: Cost and Total Revenue Associated with Two Levels of Demand in an Open Fishery...51 2.5 Figure 5: Long-Run Relation between Supply and Demand in a Depleted Fishery.............. 53 Viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my committee members for their insightful comments and criticisms. I am especially grateful to Dr. Robert Gifford, who proved to be a rational voice (and a calming influence) in times of despair. Finally, I would like to thank Anne, my parents, brothers, and all of my other friends in Victoria and Edmonton who offered their advice, support and encouragement. IX CHAPTER 1 Introduction In this era of overpopulation, global pollution, and rapidly diminishing resource stocks, resource allocation represents one of the most important issues facing humanity. One aspect of the allocation process, the commons dilemma, has become a popular research topic among psychologists. The present review represents the first quantitative synthesis of this research. Social dilemmas are situations involving a conflict between individual and group interests. According to Dawes (1980), all social dilemmas share two general properties: (1) each individual in a group receives a higher payoff for self-interest actions (defection) than for public-interest actions (cooperation) regardless of how others act, and (2) the total payoffs associated with universal defection are lower than for universal cooperation. Often a temporal component is also involved; the negative consequences of self-interest actions may be delayed (Messick & McClelland, 1983). Social dilemmas involving the use of a limited shared resource are known as commons dilemmas. The word "commons" was originally used to refer to jointly owned pastures on which herdsman could graze their cattle. The term is used more broadly today, typically referring to any desirable resource held jointly by a group of individuals (Gifford, 1987). Commons can be ecological (e.g., fish, whales, forests, minerals, and clean air), financial (e.g., joint bank accounts, and federal government funds), domestic (e.g., food in the family refrigerator), or work-related (e.g., office stationery supplies and parking spots). Some of the most pressing problems presently facing mankind (e.g., the greenhouse effect, the destruction of South American rainforests, the pollution of our oceans, rapidly diminishing stocks of food and fossil fuels, etc.) can be recast in commons- dilemma terms. The dilemma itself is essentially a decisional one. Each consumer must decide whether to limit his or her consumption (a choice that may benefit the group in the long-run), or to maintain usage at present levels and thereby threaten the future of the common pool (Edney, 1980; Gifford, 1987). Those who choose to limit their use of certain resources place themselves in a vulnerable position. They relinquish the benefits associated with high levels of consumption (e.g., large short-term profits stemming from resource sales), yet are given no guarantee that others will also display restraint and not extinguish the resource. Clearly, unless there is some reason to believe that others will also act responsibly, conscientious behavior is not likely to be rewarded. Historical Antecedents to Commons-Dilemma Research Humans have a long history of mismanaging certain natural resources. Overgrazing has, time and time again, led to the destruction of once fertile rangeland [e.g., the (once) fertile crescent running through what is now Iran and Iraq, the Sahel region of Africa, etc.]. Many historians believe that the fall of Greece and Rome can be partly attributed to land misuse (Chiras, 1988). Aristotle seems to have recognized the root of the problem: What is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of care. Men pay most attention to what is their own; they care less for what is common; or at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned. Even when there is no other cause for inattention, men are more prone to neglect their duty when they think another is attending to it...(cited in Waldron, 1988, p. 6). The first explicit treatment of the commons dilemma was presented by the English political economist W. F. Lloyd in a lecture on population checks delivered at Oxford University in 1832. Lloyd (1837/1968, pp. 31-32) used a parable involving a group of herdsmen and a common 4 pasture to outline the problem. According to Lloyd, there are benefits and costs associated with adding cattle to one's herd. Herdsmen will only continue to add cattle as long as the benefits for doing so outweigh the costs. In the private pasture situation (i.e., whore each herdsman grazes his cattle on his own land), the benefits and costs of adding cattle are experienced directly by the individual herdsman. However, in the commons situation, each herdsman receives all the benefits associated with adding cattle, but only pays a fraction of the costs which are diffused equally among all other herdsmen sharing the pasture. In other words, the checks controlling population in the private pasture situation are removed in the commons situation resulting in the demise of the common and ultimately of the cattle that graze there. Lloyd's notions were popularized and extended to contemporary population and ecological problems by biologist Garrett Hardin (1968). In his seminal article "The Tragedy of the Commons", Hardin (like Lloyd) asserts that unregulated use of the commons will bring ruin to all. Hardin suggests that in many situations (i.e., when the common is land or some other easily divisible resource) destruction of the common can be averted by dividing it up into privately owned (or managed) territories. However, when dealing with commons that are not readily divisible (e.g., oceans, rivers, the atmosphere, etc.), Hardin advocates the introduction of mutually agreed-on coercive laws or taxing systems to facilitate public interest behavior. Hardin admits his "coercive solution" may not be compatible with traditional conceptions of personal freedom. However, he believes such a solution is necessary if the "tragedy of the commons" is to be avoided. A number of commons-dilemma researchers (e.g., Dawes, 1980; Gifford, 1987) have contrasted the views of Lloyd and Hardin with those expressed by the 18th century Scottish economist Adam Smith (1776/1976). According to Smith, in a laissez-faire capitalist society, the self- interested individual (i.e., one who seeks his or her own economic advantage) is inadvertently guided by an "invisible hand" to contribute to the welfare of others. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it-and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention...By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it (p. 477). Smith's views with respect to the external effects of self-interested behavior seem to be diametrically opposed to those of Lloyd and Hardin. However, as Dawes (1980) has noted, the two sets of theorists may have been discussing different situations. Hardin and Lloyd's discussions focus on resources that are owned by "no one in particular", whereas Smith's view assumes the presence of a competitive market in which resources are privately owned (M. Rutherford, personal communication, August, 1990). Dawes (1980) states, Hardin's is a dilemma situation in which the external consequences of each herdsman's trying to maximize his profits are negative, and the negative consequences outweigh the positive ones to him...Smith's situation is a non-dilemma one, in which maximizing individual profit does