IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cla/levarc/671.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Warm-glow versus cold-prickle: the effect of positive and negative framing on cooperation in experiments

Author

Listed:
  • James Andreoni

Abstract

This paper considers the standard linear public goods game under two experimental conditions. The positive-frame condition is the regular public goods game that experimental economists have studied in the past. This frames the subject's choice as contributing to a public good, which will have a positive benefit to other subjects. The second condition is the negative-frame condition. The incentives of this game are identical to the positive-frame condition. However, this time a subject's choice is framed as purchasing a private good which, since the opportunity cost is the purchase of the public good, makes the other subjects worse off. The result is that subjects in the positive-frame condition are much more cooperative than subjects in the negative-frame condition. This indicates that much of the cooperation observed in public goods experiments is due to framing, and that the warm-glow of creating a positive externality appears to be stronger than the cold-prickle of creating a negative externality.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • James Andreoni, 1997. "Warm-glow versus cold-prickle: the effect of positive and negative framing on cooperation in experiments," Levine's Working Paper Archive 671, David K. Levine.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:levarc:671
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs4671.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreoni, James, 1988. "Why free ride? : Strategies and learning in public goods experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 291-304, December.
    2. Bagnoli, Mark & McKee, Michael, 1991. "Voluntary Contribution Games: Efficient Private Provision of Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(2), pages 351-366, April.
    3. Walker, James M. & Gardner, Roy & Ostrom, Elinor, 1990. "Rent dissipation in a limited-access common-pool resource: Experimental evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 203-211, November.
    4. Walker, James M & Gardner, Roy, 1992. "Probabilistic Destruction of Common-Pool Resources: Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(414), pages 1149-1161, September.
    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. Bodo Sturm & Joachim Weimann, 2006. "Experiments in Environmental Economics and Some Close Relatives," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 419-457, July.
    2. Maas, Alexander & Goemans, Christopher & Manning, Dale & Kroll, Stephan & Brown, Thomas, 2017. "Dilemmas, coordination and defection: How uncertain tipping points induce common pool resource destruction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 760-774.
    3. Erling Moxnes, 1998. "Not Only the Tragedy of the Commons: Misperceptions of Bioeconomics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(9), pages 1234-1248, September.
    4. Schnier, Kurt Erik, 2009. "Spatial externalities and the common-pool resource mechanism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 402-415, May.
    5. Kenneth Chan & Stuart Mestelman & Robert Moir & R. Muller, 1999. "Heterogeneity and the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(1), pages 5-30, August.
    6. Grigoriadis, Theocharis, 2017. "Religion, administration & public goods: Experimental evidence from Russia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 42-60.
    7. Lotito, Gianna & Migheli, Matteo & Ortona, Guido, 2011. "An experimental inquiry into the nature of relational goods," POLIS Working Papers 160, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    8. Torben Klarl, 2013. "Market dynamics, dynamic resource management and environmental policy in the context of (strong) sustainability," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 861-888, September.
    9. Herings, P.J.J. & Meshalkin, A.V. & Predtetchinski, A., 2012. "A folk theorem for bargaining games," Research Memorandum 055, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    10. Hasson, Reviva & Löfgren, Åsa & Visser, Martine, 2010. "Climate change in a public goods game: Investment decision in mitigation versus adaptation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 331-338, December.
    11. Nicolas Querou, 2018. "Interacting collective action problems in the commons," Working Papers hal-02790606, HAL.
    12. Gbetonmasse B. Somasse & Alexander Smith & Zachary Chapman, 2018. "Characterizing Actions in a Dynamic Common Pool Resource Game," Games, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 9(4), pages 1-13, December.
    13. Enrique Fatas & Tibor Neugebauer & Javier Perote, 2006. "Within‐Team Competition In The Minimum Effort Coordination Game," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 247-266, June.
    14. Fisher, Ann & Wheeler, William J. & Zwick, Rami, 1993. "Experimental Methods In Agricultural And Resource Economics: How Useful Are They?," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 22(2), pages 1-14, October.
    15. Andreoni, James, 2007. "Giving gifts to groups: How altruism depends on the number of recipients," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1731-1749, September.
    16. Oses-Eraso, Nuria & Viladrich-Grau, Montserrat, 2007. "Appropriation and concern for resource scarcity in the commons: An experimental study," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2-3), pages 435-445, August.
    17. Sefton, Martin & Steinberg, Richard, 1996. "Reward structures in public good experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 263-287, August.
    18. Christopher M. Anderson & Hirotsugu Uchida, 2014. "An Experimental Examination Of Fisheries With Concurrent Common Pool And Individual Quota Management," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(2), pages 900-913, April.
    19. Leonardo Becchetti & Pierluigi Conzo & Giacomo Degli Antoni, 2015. "Public disclosure of players’ conduct and common resources harvesting: experimental evidence from a Nairobi slum," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(1), pages 71-96, June.
    20. Mak, Vincent & Zwick, Rami & Rao, Akshay R. & Pattaratanakun, Jake A., 2015. "“Pay what you want” as threshold public good provision," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 30-43.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments

    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:cla:levarc:671. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (David K. Levine). General contact details of provider: http://www.dklevine.com/ .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.