Authors

• Herne, Kaisa (Tampere University)
• Lappalainen, Olli (University of Turku)
• Kuyper, Jonathan (Queens University Belfast)

Keywords

behavioural sciences, decision making, human behaviour, rewards, roles

Abstract

The study examined participants' decision-making in a common pool resource game experiment. The experiment was conducted on computers in a decision-making laboratory. The participants' task was to use points given to them to invest in and withdraw from the common pool resources.

The participants were randomly divided into groups of three. Each member of the group was given a number from one to three, which determined the order of decision-making. The experiment had ten rounds, and the participants received 10 points as their initial capital at the beginning of each round. During each round, the participants made two decisions. First, they decided how many points from their initial capital they would invest into the common pool resources. Then, the participants decided how many points they would withdraw from the common pool resources. The points withdrawn from the common pool resources were added to the points the participants had not invested. The largest amount a participant could withdraw during one round was 30 points, provided that the common pool resources had at least 30 points during the participant's decision-making turn. The resources available to the participants (the common pool resources and the initial capital) were reset between each round.

The decision to invest points in the common pool resources was done simultaneously by the participants, but the decisions to withdraw points from the resources were done according to the pre-determined order of decision-making. Before making the decision to invest and withdraw, participants in the same group could message each other in a chat. According to the rules of the chat, the participants had to justify any suggestions they made regarding investing and withdrawing, and the messages could not contain any information that could lead to identifying the participants.

At the end of the experiment, the points were converted into euros. One point was equivalent to 50 cents. The reward paid to the participants was determined by the amount of points the participants had saved of their initial capital and the amount of points they had withdrawn from the common pool resources. The round based on which the reward was paid was randomly selected after the experiment had ended. The reward was equivalent to what the participants had earned during the selected round.

No background information was collected on the participants.