Cargando…

When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem

Many of our most pressing challenges, from combating climate change to dealing with pandemics, are collective action problems: situations in which individual and collective interests conflict with each other. In such situations, people face a dilemma about making individually costly but collectively...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Malthouse, Eugene, Pilgrim, Charlie, Sgroi, Daniel, Hills, Thomas T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Psychological Association 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10585937/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37471038
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0001455
_version_ 1785123054856175616
author Malthouse, Eugene
Pilgrim, Charlie
Sgroi, Daniel
Hills, Thomas T.
author_facet Malthouse, Eugene
Pilgrim, Charlie
Sgroi, Daniel
Hills, Thomas T.
author_sort Malthouse, Eugene
collection PubMed
description Many of our most pressing challenges, from combating climate change to dealing with pandemics, are collective action problems: situations in which individual and collective interests conflict with each other. In such situations, people face a dilemma about making individually costly but collectively beneficial contributions to the common good. Understanding which factors influence people’s willingness to make these contributions is vital for the design of policies and institutions that support the attainment of collective goals. In this study, we investigate how inequalities, and different causes of inequalities, impact individual-level behavior and group-level outcomes. First, we find that what people judged to be fair was not enough to solve the collective action problem: if they acted according to what they thought was fair, they would collectively fail. Second, the level of wealth (rich vs. poor) altered what was judged to be a fair contribution to the public good more than the cause of wealth (merit vs. luck vs. uncertain). Contributions during the game reflected these fairness judgments, with poorer individuals consistently contributing a higher proportion of their wealth than richer participants, which further increased inequality—particularly in successful groups. Finally, the cause of one’s wealth was largely irrelevant, mattering most only when it was uncertain, as opposed to resulting from merit or luck. We discuss implications for policymakers and international climate change negotiations.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10585937
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher American Psychological Association
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-105859372023-10-20 When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem Malthouse, Eugene Pilgrim, Charlie Sgroi, Daniel Hills, Thomas T. J Exp Psychol Gen Articles Many of our most pressing challenges, from combating climate change to dealing with pandemics, are collective action problems: situations in which individual and collective interests conflict with each other. In such situations, people face a dilemma about making individually costly but collectively beneficial contributions to the common good. Understanding which factors influence people’s willingness to make these contributions is vital for the design of policies and institutions that support the attainment of collective goals. In this study, we investigate how inequalities, and different causes of inequalities, impact individual-level behavior and group-level outcomes. First, we find that what people judged to be fair was not enough to solve the collective action problem: if they acted according to what they thought was fair, they would collectively fail. Second, the level of wealth (rich vs. poor) altered what was judged to be a fair contribution to the public good more than the cause of wealth (merit vs. luck vs. uncertain). Contributions during the game reflected these fairness judgments, with poorer individuals consistently contributing a higher proportion of their wealth than richer participants, which further increased inequality—particularly in successful groups. Finally, the cause of one’s wealth was largely irrelevant, mattering most only when it was uncertain, as opposed to resulting from merit or luck. We discuss implications for policymakers and international climate change negotiations. American Psychological Association 2023-07-20 2023-11 /pmc/articles/PMC10585937/ /pubmed/37471038 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0001455 Text en © 2023 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This article has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright for this article is retained by the authors. Authors grant the American Psychological Association the exclusive right to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
spellingShingle Articles
Malthouse, Eugene
Pilgrim, Charlie
Sgroi, Daniel
Hills, Thomas T.
When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem
title When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem
title_full When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem
title_fullStr When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem
title_full_unstemmed When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem
title_short When Fairness Is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem
title_sort when fairness is not enough: the disproportionate contributions of the poor in a collective action problem
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10585937/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37471038
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0001455
work_keys_str_mv AT malthouseeugene whenfairnessisnotenoughthedisproportionatecontributionsofthepoorinacollectiveactionproblem
AT pilgrimcharlie whenfairnessisnotenoughthedisproportionatecontributionsofthepoorinacollectiveactionproblem
AT sgroidaniel whenfairnessisnotenoughthedisproportionatecontributionsofthepoorinacollectiveactionproblem
AT hillsthomast whenfairnessisnotenoughthedisproportionatecontributionsofthepoorinacollectiveactionproblem