IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0058826.html

Competition over Personal Resources Favors Contribution to Shared Resources in Human Groups

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica L Barker
  • Pat Barclay
  • H Kern Reeve

Abstract

Members of social groups face a trade-off between investing selfish effort for themselves and investing cooperative effort to produce a shared group resource. Many group resources are shared equitably: they may be intrinsically non-excludable public goods, such as vigilance against predators, or so large that there is little cost to sharing, such as cooperatively hunted big game. However, group members' personal resources, such as food hunted individually, may be monopolizable. In such cases, an individual may benefit by investing effort in taking others' personal resources, and in defending one's own resources against others. We use a game theoretic “tug-of-war” model to predict that when such competition over personal resources is possible, players will contribute more towards a group resource, and also obtain higher payoffs from doing so. We test and find support for these predictions in two laboratory economic games with humans, comparing people's investment decisions in games with and without the options to compete over personal resources or invest in a group resource. Our results help explain why people cooperatively contribute to group resources, suggest how a tragedy of the commons may be avoided, and highlight unifying features in the evolution of cooperation and competition in human and non-human societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica L Barker & Pat Barclay & H Kern Reeve, 2013. "Competition over Personal Resources Favors Contribution to Shared Resources in Human Groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-9, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0058826
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058826
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058826
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058826&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0058826?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davis, Douglas D. & Holt, Charles a., 1993. "Experimental economics: Methods, problems and promise," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 8(2), pages 179-212.
    2. Dawes, Robyn M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "Anomalies: Cooperation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 187-197, Summer.
    3. Frank W. Marlowe, 2004. "What Explains Hadza Food Sharing?," Research in Economic Anthropology, in: Socioeconomic Aspects of Human Behavioral Ecology, pages 69-88, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. Fischbacher, Urs & Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 2001. "Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 397-404, June.
    5. Ostrom, Elinor & Walker, James & Gardner, Roy, 1992. "Covenants with and without a Sword: Self-Governance Is Possible," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 404-417, June.
    6. Jeffrey R. Stevens & David W. Stephens, 2002. "Food sharing: a model of manipulation by harassment," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 13(3), pages 393-400, May.
    7. repec:adr:anecst:y:2001:i:63-64:p:03 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jessica L. Barker & Pat Barclay & H. Kern Reeve, 2012. "Within-group competition reduces cooperation and payoffs in human groups," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 23(4), pages 735-741.
    9. Frank Marlowe, 2004. "What explains hadza food sharing?," Framed Field Experiments 00190, The Field Experiments Website.
    10. Jessica C. Flack & Michelle Girvan & Frans B. M. de Waal & David C. Krakauer, 2006. "Policing stabilizes construction of social niches in primates," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7075), pages 426-429, January.
    11. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    12. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    13. Wilkinson, Richard G. & Pickett, Kate E., 2007. "The problems of relative deprivation: Why some societies do better than others," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1965-1978, November.
    14. Steven A. Frank, 2009. "Evolutionary Foundations of Cooperation and Group Cohesion," Springer Series in Game Theory, in: Simon A. Levin (ed.), Games, Groups, and the Global Good, pages 3-40, Springer.
    15. Bram Tucker, 2004. "Giving, Scrounging, Hiding, And Selling: Minimal Food Sharing Among Mikea Of Madagascar," Research in Economic Anthropology, in: Socioeconomic Aspects of Human Behavioral Ecology, pages 45-68, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    16. Rustagi, Devesh, 2010. "Conditional Cooperation and Costly Monitoring Explain Success in Forest Commons Management," MPRA Paper 124049, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Daniel J. Zizzo & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Are People Willing to Pay to Reduce Others'Incomes?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 63-64, pages 39-65.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hoeft, Leonard & Mill, Wladislaw, 2024. "Abuse of power," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 305-324.
    2. Felix Albrecht & Sebastian Kube & Christian Traxler, 2016. "Cooperation and Punishment: The Individual-Level Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 6284, CESifo.
    3. Albrecht, Felix & Kube, Sebastian & Traxler, Christian, 2018. "Cooperation and norm enforcement - The individual-level perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-16.
    4. Pat Barclay & Stephen Benard, 2013. "Who Cries Wolf, and When? Manipulation of Perceived Threats to Preserve Rank in Cooperative Groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-13, September.
    5. Stoop, Jan & van Soest, Daan & Vyrastekova, Jana, 2011. "Carrots without Bite: On the Ineffectiveness of 'Rewards' in sustaining Cooperation in Social Dilemmas," MPRA Paper 30538, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Wojtek Przepiorka & Andreas Diekmann, 2020. "Binding Contracts, Non-Binding Promises and Social Feedback in the Intertemporal Common-Pool Resource Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-21, January.
    7. repec:cgr:cgsser:06-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Theodore Eisenberg & Christoph Engel, 2012. "Assuring Adequate Deterrence in Tort: A Public Good Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics 2012_07, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics.
    9. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David & Peterle, Emmanuel, 2018. "Discrimination as favoritism: The private benefits and social costs of in-group favoritism in an experimental labor market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 220-236.
    10. Gürdal, Mehmet Y. & Gürerk, Özgür & Kaçamak, Yeliz & Kart, Edip, 2024. "How to increase and sustain cooperation in public goods games: Conditional commitments via a mediator," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    11. Sabrina Eisenbarth & Louis Graham & Anouk S. Rigterink, 2021. "Can Reminders of Rules Induce Compliance? Experimental Evidence from a Common Pool Resource Setting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(4), pages 653-681, August.
    12. Engel, Christoph & Kube, Sebastian & Kurschilgen, Michael, 2021. "Managing expectations: How selective information affects cooperation and punishment in social dilemma games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 111-136.
    13. Hyoyoung Kim & Doruk İriş & Jinkwon Lee & Alessandro Tavoni, 2025. "Representation, Peer Pressure and Punishment in a Public Goods Game," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 88(5), pages 1407-1433, May.
    14. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    15. Kölle, Felix & Quercia, Simone, 2021. "The influence of empirical and normative expectations on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 691-703.
    16. Felix Kolle, 2012. "Heterogeneity and Cooperation in Privileged Groups: The Role of Capability and Valuation on Public Goods Provision," Discussion Papers 2012-07, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    17. Weber, Till O. & Schulz, Jonathan F. & Beranek, Benjamin & Lambarraa-Lehnhardt, Fatima & Gächter, Simon, 2023. "The behavioral mechanisms of voluntary cooperation across culturally diverse societies: Evidence from the US, the UK, Morocco, and Turkey," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 134-152.
    18. Sääksvuori, Lauri, 2013. "Voluntary formation of centralized sanctioning institutions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 150-159.
    19. repec:cgr:cgsser:03-08 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Claudia Keser & Andreas Markstädter & Martin Schmidt, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogeneous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," CIRANO Working Papers 2014s-47, CIRANO.
    21. Christoph Engel & Sebastian Kube & Michael Kurschilgen, 2011. "Can we manage first impressions in cooperation problems? An experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics 2011_05, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics, revised May 2014.
    22. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas & Schmidt, Martin, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogenous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 224, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0058826. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.