Social Traps Research Articles

A Strategic Marketing Framework for Emerging Out of the Climate Change Social Trap: The Case of the Fashion Industry

Climate change mitigation is arguably the most significant challenge of the twenty-first century. On the foundations of research on social traps by economists and behavioral scientists, this research: (1) conceptualizes the climate change social trap as the behavior of entities (firms, individuals, or social groups) favoring short-term positive consequences over long-term negative consequences of climate change for society; (2) provides a brief overview of the impact of the fashion industry on climate change; (3) develops a summary overview of research on social traps and taxonomies of solutions for social traps; (4) discusses, in detail, a strategic marketing framework built on a taxonomy developed in macromarketing; and (5) using the framework, evaluates 130 leading companies in the fashion industry with reference to their strategic marketing efforts to draw insights for emerging out of the climate change social trap. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this research for marketing theory and practice in helping firms emerge out of social traps in general, and the climate change social trap in particular.

Does Legitimacy Mitigate Corruption? The Relevance of Social Traps in Low-corruption Contexts

ABSTRACT People tend to accept decisions if the process leading up to them is perceived as legitimate. However, the literature seldom asks if perceived legitimacy translates to compliant, non-corrupt behavior. Thus, the association between legitimacy and corruption is curiously understudied. This paper argues that, while legitimation may contribute to acceptance of authority, it does not necessarily lead to compliance with anti-corruption norms. Analysing a mature democracy characterised by absence of endemic corruption, it finds that while legitimacy may, to a small extent, contribute to compliance with anti-corruption norms, it is in most cases insufficient to overcome incentives of self-interested behavior. Instead, compliance with anti-corruption norms crucially depends on individuals’ perceptions of how willing others are to take part, or not to take part, in corruption. This implies support for the ‘social trap’-view of corruption, where credible enforcement of non-corruption norms is crucial to persuading people not to take part in it.

Interplay of Elementary Interactions Causing Social Traps in Evolutionary Games

In evolutionary games, pair interactions are defined by payoff matrices that can be decomposed into four types of orthogonal elementary games that represent fundamentally different interaction situations. The four classes of elementary interactions are formed by games with self- and cross-dependent payoffs, coordination games, and cyclic games. At the level of two-person games, social traps (dilemmas) can not occur for symmetric payoff matrices, which are combinations of coordination games and symmetrically paired self- and cross-dependent components, because individual and common interests coincide in them. In spatial evolutionary games that follow the logit evolutionary dynamics, however, the total payoff is still not maximized at certain noise levels in certain combinations of symmetric components. This phenomenon is similar to the appearance of partially ordered phases in solid state physics, which are stabilized by their higher entropy. In contrast, it is the antisymmetric part of their self- and cross-dependent components that is responsible for the emergence of traditional social dilemmas in games like the two-strategy donation game or the prisoner's dilemma. The general features of these social dilemmas are inherited by $n$-strategy games in the absence of cyclic components, which would prevent the existence of a potential and thus thermodynamic behavior. Using the mathematical framework of matrix decomposition, we survey the ways in which the interplay of elementary games can lead to a loss of total payoff for a society of selfish players. We describe the general features of different illustrative combinations of elementary games, including a game in which the presence of a cyclic component gives rise to the the tragedy of the commons via a paradoxical effect.

A Few Good Companies: Rethinking Firms’ Responsibilities Toward Common Pool Resources

While a significant body of literature has highlighted the moral obligations of companies regarding the sustainable use of common pool resources, business activities that contribute to the sustenance of common pool resources remain embryonic. Studies in this area have largely focused on environmental stimuli rather than on the complex motivational structures that drive or hinder businesses’ contributions to common pool resources. We explore the different motives and behaviors of businesses and their contributions to common pool resources, and propose four roles by which companies’ motives and behaviors toward common pool resources can be categorized—namely, free riders, followers, believers, and altruists. We shift the focus from moral reasoning to Platt’s (Am Psychol 28(8):641–651, 1973) notion of social trapping and his “ways out” as Platt’s “ways out” include propositions that address not only environmental stimuli but also companies’ motives. Both types of propositions are important for businesses to be able to respond rapidly to the scarcity of certain common pool resources and to use and maintain common pool resources in a sustainable way. Based on our categorization and Platt’s typology of social traps and “ways out,” we propose a theoretical framework by which companies and other stakeholders are provided with a differentiating perspective that allows for propositions addressing the complex nature of motivational structures and common pool resources. Our framework helps business leaders, institutions, and policy makers decide on actions that can contribute to the sustainability of common pool resources and that differ from actions that solely serve organizational self-interests.

Who Resembles Whom? Mimetic and Coincidental Look-Alikes among Tropical Reef Fishes

Studies of mimicry among tropical reef-fishes usually give little or no consideration to alternative explanations for behavioral associations between unrelated, look-alike species that benefit the supposed mimic. I propose and assess such an alternative explanation. With mimicry the mimic resembles its model, evolved to do so in response to selection by the mimicry target, and gains evolved benefits from that resemblance. In the alternative, the social-trap hypothesis, a coincidental resemblance of the model to the “mimic” inadvertently attracts the latter to it, and reinforcement of this social trapping by learned benefits leads to the “mimic” regularly associating with the model. I examine three well known cases of supposed aggressive mimicry among reef-fishes in relation to nine predictions from these hypotheses, and assess which hypothesis offers a better explanation for each. One case, involving precise and complex morphological and behavioral resemblance, is strongly consistent with mimicry, one is inconclusive, and one is more consistent with a social-trap based on coincidental, imprecise resemblance. Few cases of supposed interspecific mimicry among tropical reef fishes have been examined in depth, and many such associations may involve social traps arising from generalized, coincidental resemblance. Mimicry may be much less common among these fishes than is generally thought.

Social Traps and the Problem of Trust

Social Traps and the Problem of Trust. By Bo Rothstein. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 256p. $80.00 cloth, $30.99 paper. How do you get from Moscow to Stockholm? That is, how do you create efficient, honest government like that of Sweden as opposed to the incompetence and corruption found in Russia? This question drives Bo Rothstein into an analysis of the causes of social traps—situations where actors cannot cooperate due to mutual distrust, even if cooperation is mutually beneficial. Eliminating social traps requires generalized trust, that is, social capital. How does one engender trust? Robert Putnam, both in Making Democracy Work (1993) and Bowling Alone (2001), argues that social capital is created through civil society, a process that bubbles up through history and culture. Rothstein takes this view to task for not analytically distinguishing between associations (a behavior) and trust (a belief), for it is really the belief that needs to be generated. Trust, in his view, need not evolve organically from below; it can be generated from above by establishing efficient political institutions. If public officials are corrupt, citizens will infer that people in general are dishonest and behave dishonestly themselves. Thus, social traps are sprung. The reverse is also true: Honest governance begets social trust.

Social Traps and the Problem of Trust: Theories of Institutional Design – By Bo Rothstein

Social Traps and the Problem of Trust: Theories of Institutional Design – By Bo Rothstein

Walking out of two-level social traps (with a little help from my friends)

Studies of iterated prisoner's dilemmas (IPD) have shown that agents can escape the social trap of mutual defection by focusing on future gains or by learning from prior experiences. This terrain has been well charted. Yet only recently has attention turned to how groups of agents engage in an IPD scenario against other groups, a scenario that the author dubs “two-level social traps.” This article investigates the impact of group size on the performance of groups in a two-group IPD based on Michael W. Macy's STOCHASTIC LEARNING MODEL OF SOCIAL EXCHANGE. The findings of the study suggest that when a democratic (majoritarian) decision rule is used, larger groups perform better in moving from an uncooperative equilibrium to a cooperative equilibrium. The proposed explanation for this is that larger groups reduce uncertainty in the random processes of strategy selection.

A Church that Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching. By John T. Noonan Jr, Social Traps and the Problem of Trust. By Bo Rothstein, Living Together & Christian Ethics. By Adrian Thatcher and More Lasting Unions: Christianity, the Family, and Society. By Stephen G. Post

A Church that Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching. By John T. Noonan Jr, Social Traps and the Problem of Trust. By Bo Rothstein, Living Together & Christian Ethics. By Adrian Thatcher and More Lasting Unions: Christianity, the Family, and Society. By Stephen G. Post

How to Catch a Seal? The Analytic Narratives on Rational Norms of 19th-Century Aiboland

This paper states that small communities are able to solve the tragedy of the commons by consent over social norms which change the structure of social trap games. I argue that social traps, which are caused by rational human behaviour, have informal institutional solutions. I show that individual benefits from cooperation and costs of enforcement of social norms are dependent on group size - community management can be effective only if community is small. The discrete cut which divides communities into small and large is between 50-400 players. My case communities are situated on the island and islets on the western cost of Estonia. The analytic narratives, composed by using historical material from the 19th century until the Second World War, indicate that institutional complementarities for effective community management not only avoided social traps, but also differed by communities.

A Social Trap Analysis of the Management of Diversity

Social trap theory is the basis for an analysis of how management initiatives influence diversity-related outcomes within work organizations. Social traps are situations where decision problems involve conflicts between individual or near-term outcomes and collective or long-term consequences. The management of diversity is conceptualized in terms of the social traps created by workplace diversity issues. A social trap model is proposed that (a) identifies the defining attributes of social traps in diversity contexts, (b) links human resource initiatives with a taxonomy of social trap solutions, (c) explores the efficacy of these solutions for altering the dynamics of social traps, and (d) examines the influence of changes in trap dynamics on an organization's diversity climate. We discuss the contribution and implications of a social trap approach to diversity and outline a research agenda for the model.

Food superstore overdevelopment in the UK and the concept of the social trap

Business corporations often appear to persist with strategies long after outside observers have warned of pitfalls. Precisely this problem arose in the early 1990s, when all the leading British food retailers persisted with the opening of large stores (superstores) in the face of a collapsing property market. It is suggested that the actions of the retailers resemble a ‘social trap’, where actions that are initially rational become, with time, irrational. This paper outlines several examples of social traps, and attempts to interpret recent retail change in this light.

Responsibility and Social Traps

Etude du probleme de la distribution de la responsabilite dans le cadre de l'organisation corporatiste de la division du travail, d'une part, et dans le cadre de l'action collective et des processus dynamiques du marche, d'autre part. Mesurant la croissance du pouvoir technologique sur les hommes, l'A. distingue la responsabilite individuelle et la responsabilite morale dans la part grandissante de risques lies aux pieges sociaux (paradoxe du prisonnier)

Experiments with Social Traps IV

In a long sequence of iterated Prisoner's Dilemma played by a pair of subjects, "lock-in " effects are frequently observed both on the CC and on the DD outcome. That is, in the course of the sequence either CC or DD becomes predominant sometimes persisting to the end. A lock-in on CC can be explained by a deterrence effect: The subjects learn that defection to D, although immediately advantageous if the co-player continues with C, is likely to be followed by retaliation. A lock-in on DD can be explained by the inhibition of unilateral C (the "peace initiative"), which is associated with the sucker's payoff In the present experiment, subjects played repeated round robin sequences of Prisoner's Dilemma with other subjects in their experimental group. Prominent lock-in effects were observed when the subjects were informed on each play how their current co-players chose when paired with other subjects but not when no such information was given.

Experiments with Social Traps III

A coalition is usually assumed to involve an agreement, explicit or implicit, among several actors (individuals or organizations) to cooperate in pursuit of a common interest. Typically members of a coalition regard such cooperation in their own individual interest only if others continue to cooperate. Thus violation of the agreement holding the coalition together by some members often instigates others to defect, and the process becomes self-reinforcing. The effect is demonstrated in an experiment with a Tragedy of the Commons type game, in which one of the players, a confederate of the experimenter, (the “stooge”) grossly violates apparent expectations of the others. Measures of the amount of cooperation (or noncooperation) before and after the stooge's intervention are related to the presence or absence of preliminary discussion and to the number of players.

Walking out of Social Traps

Theoretical and experimental studies of the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma have yielded a central insight into the logic of cooperation: the principle of reciprocity. However, previous models, based on either rational-actor or evolutionary processes of optimization, entail unduly restrictive assumptions. This essay proposes a behavioral alternative in which reciprocity is interpreted as operant conditioning - rewarding cooperation and punishing defection. The proposed stochastic learning model shows how players with no grasp of the structure of their relationship can escape social traps via random walk. Insights drawn from the two-person problem are then extended to multilateral encounters.

Experiments with N-Person Social Traps I

Subjects for single play experiments with n-person social traps (strong and weak versions of Prisoner's Dilemma, Volunteer's Dilemma, Largest Number) were recruited from several populations: students, professionals, business people, employees, and foreign visitors. Performances were compared across the subject pools, across the games, and across instructions. The results indicated that subjects receiving full instructions, including warnings about the social traps, avoid the social traps more frequently than those receiving minimal instructions. However, the differences in frequencies of cooperative choices were all slight except for the strong version of Prisoner's Dilemma. Fewest cooperative choices were observed in business people, the most in foreign visitors. However, the latter effect may have been an artifact due to self-selection. Among the games, Largest Number is distinguished by possessing no individually rational equilibrium. The cooperative solution of this game, however, is salient, namely, for each to name the smallest number. In spite of this salience, the smallest frequencies of cooperative choices were observed in this game, and full instructions did not significantly increase the frequency. When the subjects had an opportunity to organize five-person cooperative groups, each of which had a good chance of winning $1000, only 30 of 60 subjects formed such groups.

Experiments with N-Person Social Traps II

A version of the Tragedy of the Commons was played by 16 four-person groups, 2 three-person groups, and 1 two-person group. Calculation of individually rational equilibria for the seven-round game was out of the question. The collectively rational strategy, on the other hand, is salient: No one is to draw from the common resource pool for the first six rounds, allowing the pool to double each round; then each is to claim an equal share of the pool, which has increasedby by a factor of 64. The game was presented under two conditions: minimal and full instructions, the latter including the disclosure of the collectively rational strategy. None of the four-person groups and neither of the two three-person groups achieved the optimal result. Only the single two-person group cooperated all the way, refraining from drawing from the pool until the last round and harvesting $38.40 on the final round. This pair was given the full instructions. Full instructions did have a positive effect, however, raising the level of cooperation as measured by several indices.

Social Traps and Environmental Policy

Journal Article Social Traps and Environmental Policy Get access Robert Costanza Robert Costanza Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar BioScience, Volume 37, Issue 6, June 1987, Pages 407–412, https://doi.org/10.2307/1310564 Published: 01 June 1987

Review Essay: The Nuclear Arms Race and the Theory of Social Traps

Social traps are those all too common situations in which people behave contrary to their own self-interest while making what appear to them to be rational decisions. These situations may provide useful models for explaining (and analyzing possible escapes from) the nuclear arms race. The literature on social traps is reviewed, concentrating on three recent books: (1) Social Traps (1980) by J.G. Cross and M.J. Guyer, which provides a taxonomy of traps and escapes: (2) Too Much Invested to Quit (1980) by A.I. Teger, which is a detailed experimental study of the dollar auction game, an easily repeatable social trap designed to study conflict escalation; and (3) The War Trap (1981) by B. Bueno de Mesquita, which is only tangentially about social traps but provides supporting data and models on the history of international conflicts. Pos sible escapes from the nuclear arms trap are reviewed and the idea of a weapons tax to convert the trap into a trade-off is proposed and discussed.