The need for justification is a widely observed social phenomenon. This paper develops a theoretical framework and reports laboratory evidence to show how pure justification pressure affects cooperative behavior in economic exchange environments. In a one-shot anonymous interaction, compared...

We develop a model relating self-control, risk preferences and conflict identification to cooperation patterns in social dilemmas. We subject our model to data from an experimental public goods game and a risk experiment, and we measure conflict identification and self-control. As predicted, we...

We study how gradualism -- increasing required levels (""thresholds"") of contributions slowly over time rather than requiring a high level of contribution immediately -- affects individuals' decisions to contribute to a public project. Using a laboratory binary choice minimum-effort...

Cooperation and competition are both essential elements of economic life. Here we explore how cooperativeness in a prisoner’s dilemma is correlated with competitiveness in a sample of 9-12 year old children in Colombia and Sweden. Using two different measures and four different tasks for...

This paper compares cooperation among Columbian and Swedish children aged 9-12. We illustrate the dynamics of the prisoner´s dilemma in a new task that is easily understood by children and performed during a physical education class. We find some evidence that children cooperate more in Sweden...

"Written with the attempt to tell credible history and possible scenes, in order to anticipate still latent tendencies, or in order to imagine communities and societies more civil, richer than reciprocity, in all its shapes. " (p. xv). From this ambitious premised the author of the issue takes...

Time-consuming and costly religious rituals pose a puzzle for economists committed to rational choice theories of human behavior. We propose that religious rituals promote in-group trust and cooperation that help to overcome collective-action problems. To test this hypothesis we design field...

The in-group-out-group bias is among the most well documented and widely observed phenomenon in the social sciences. Despite its role in hiring decisions and job discrimination, negotiations, and conflict and competition between groups, economists have paid little attention to the...

Models of job tournaments and competitive workplaces more generally predict that while individual effort may increase as competition intensifies between workers, the incentive for workers to cooperate with each other diminishes. We report on a field experiment conducted with workers from a...

We model the dynamic effects of external enforcement on the exploitation of a common pool resource. Fitting our model to the results of experimental data we find that institutions influence social preferences. We solve two puzzles in the data: the increase and later erosion of cooperation when...