Construing Collective Concerns: Increasing Cooperation by Broadening Construals in Social Dilemmas

摘要

Many of the most challenging issues of society involve increasing the collective good, but people often are caught between cooperating and competing (i.e., social dilemmas; Komorita & Parks, 1996; Messick & Brewer, 1983; Schroeder, 1995; Shepperd, 1993). For example, although most people agree that contributing to public services, recycling waste, conserving energy, and refraining from overharvesting are great ideas, fewer engage in such activities. Individuals can exploit the collective. Consider, for example, fishing the oceans. It may be profitable for individuals to maximize self-interests by harvesting all the fish they can. However, if others did the same, the resource might dry up, and all would be worse off. In a 1968 article, Hardin used the term ‘‘tragedy of the commons’’ to describe such a scenario.