Preschoolers are sensitive to free riding in a public goods game.

Martina Vogelsang,Claudio Tennie,Sebastian Kirschner,Michael Tomasello,Keith Jensen

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00729

Abstract

Despite the benefits of cooperation, selfish individuals often produce outcomes where everyone is worse off. This “tragedy of the commons” has been demonstrated experimentally in adults with the public goods game. Contributions to a public good decline over time due to free-riders who keep their endowments. Little is known about how children behave when confronted with this social dilemma. Forty-eight preschoolers were tested using a novel non-verbal procedure and simplified choices more appropriate to their age than standard economic approaches. The rate of cooperation was initially very low and rose in the second round for the girls only. Children were affected by their previous outcome, as they free rode more after experiencing a lower outcome compared to the other group members.

Highlights

People are remarkably cooperative, engaging in joint ventures from cooperative hunting in small groups to large-scale institutions such as elected governments. What makes this cooperation remarkable is that non-contributors can benefit from the efforts of the contributors without paying the costs
The results of the Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) showed that gender and round had an effect on the number of choices for the private side, with boys choosing the private side more often and the amount of private choices increasing over the course of the test (0.04 ± 0.02, z = 2.08, p = 0.038)
Five year-old children— the youngest yet tested in a public goods game—were, to some degree, conditional cooperators

Summary

Introduction

People are remarkably cooperative, engaging in joint ventures from cooperative hunting in small groups to large-scale institutions such as elected governments. What makes this cooperation remarkable is that non-contributors can benefit from the efforts of the contributors without paying the costs. The best group outcome is if no one overutilises the resource, such as overgrazing the commons, but the best short-term outcome for each individual is to have as large a herd as possible. Public goods that cannot be depleted, so-called non-rivalrous goods, such as elected governments and public television, are still vulnerable to free-riding (Feeny et al, 1990), i.e., people can exploit investments of others while not investing themselves. Pose a social dilemma between individual and group interests (Kollock, 1998); yet, despite the temptation to free-ride and the prevalence of free-riders, cooperation can, and does, exist (Ostrom, 1990)

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Conclusion