Beyond a binary theorizing of prosociality

TL;DR

This paper investigates why humans contribute to public goods more than rational models predict, distinguishing innate prosocial preferences from learning effects using large-scale experiments with zealots and varying awareness.

Contribution

It provides evidence that prosociality is nuanced, showing that people are influenced by persistent cooperators but do not always act altruistically, challenging simplistic theories.

Findings

Humans exhibit a prosocial bias but are not always altruistic.

People respond positively to zealots, affecting cooperation levels.

The results have policy implications for promoting cooperation.

Abstract

A stylized experiment, the public goods game, has taught us the peculiar reproducible fact that humans tend to contribute more to shared resources than expected from economically rational assumptions. There have been two competing explanations for this phenomenon: either contributing to the public good is an innate human trait (the prosocial preference hypothesis) or a transitory effect while learning the game (the confused learner hypothesis). We use large-scale experimental data from a novel experimental design to distinguish between these two hypotheses. By monitoring the effects of zealots (persistently cooperating bots) and varying the participants' awareness of them, we find a considerably more complex scenario than previously reported. People indeed have a prosocial bias, but not to the degree that they always forego taking action to increase their profit. While our findings end the simplistic theorizing of prosociality in the public goods game, an observed positive, cooperative response to zealots has actionable policy implications.