Abstract
Groups make decisions on both the production and the distribution of resources. These decisions typically involve a tension between increasing the total level of group resources (i.e. social efficiency) and distributing these resources among group members (i.e. individuals' relative shares). This is the case because the redistribution process may destroy part of the resources, thus resulting in socially inefficient allocations. Here we apply a dual-process approach to understand the cognitive underpinnings of this fundamental tension. We conducted a set of experiments to examine the extent to which different allocation decisions respond to intuition or deliberation. In a newly developed approach, we assess intuition and deliberation at both the trait level (using the Cognitive Reflection Test, henceforth CRT) and the state level (through the experimental manipulation of response times). To test for robustness, experiments were conducted in two countries: the USA and India. Despite absolute-level differences across countries, in both locations we show that: (i) time pressure and low CRT scores are associated with individuals' concerns for their relative shares and (ii) time delay and high CRT scores are associated with individuals' concerns for social efficiency. These findings demonstrate that deliberation favours social efficiency by overriding individuals' intuitive tendency to focus on relative shares.
Highlights
Groups make decisions on both the production and the distribution of resources. These decisions typically involve a tension between increasing the total level of group resources and distributing these resources among group members
Because the distribution process may result in the destruction of part of the resources, there often exists a fundamental conflict between the concern for total group resources (i.e. ‘social efficiency’) and the concern for group members’ relative shares of the group resources
Since in the two ‘non-neutral’ conditions the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) was performed after the treatment manipulations and the effect of CRT is expected to be milder when time responses are manipulated, the neutral condition is the proper scenario to analyse the effect of CRT on social motives
Summary
India are significantly more spiteful than residents in the USA according to the choice-based definition 6 (p < 0.01), not significantly so according to the model-based definition (p = 0.33; note that the likelihood of finding a significant difference might have been reduced due to the fact that the model-based definition only classifies 9% of subjects as spiteful) When including both numeracy skills and CRT scores as predictors, numeracy is significant in only one out of seven cases, i.e. choice-based social efficiency (p = 0.03; all remaining p’s > 0.11; see electronic supplementary material, table S11), indicating that numeracy is unlikely to act as a mediator in the relationship between CRT and social motives. The trait-level analysis largely supports our hypothesis that deliberation favours social efficiency by overriding the individuals’ intuitive tendency to care for the relative share with which each person is allocated
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