Individuals are often poorly informed about the environmental consequences of their actions. Informational campaigns are a widely used policy tool to address imperfect information. However, previous research suggests that simply providing information may be ineffective and fail to engage individuals. We investigate whether augmented reality (AR) can reduce psychological distance and promote pro-environmental behavior. In two incentivized experiments (laboratory and contextualized), we evaluate the effect of AR visualizations of marine plastic-pollution consequences on participants' psychological distance and donations to pro-environmental organizations. These measures are complemented by self-reported environmental concern, pro-environmental engagement, intention to act, and prior experience with AR technology. Our results show no significant impact of AR visualizations on psychological distance or donation levels in either the AR-Lab or AR-Context settings. Consistent with these behavioral findings, we observe no significant differences across experimental conditions in self-reported measures. Interestingly, we document a general optimism regarding the effectiveness of immersive technologies as policy tools, highlighting a potential misalignment between public expectations and the actual effectiveness of these technologies.

The sharing of valuable information is at the root of both economic growth and societal welfare. However, individuals and organizations face a social dilemma when deciding whether to share information with others: while sharing can create positive externalities, it may also reduce one’s competitive advantage. We present an incentivized game to study the effect of two social factors on individuals’ willingness to share information: reputational concerns arising in repeated interactions and the number of social connections. Our results point to limits of repeated interactions as a factor to motivate sharing of valuable information — we find that reputation increases information sharing, but only when the number of connections is low. We discuss some behavioral mechanisms that could drive our results.

The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat.

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Did cultures change shortly after, and in response to, the COVID‑19 outbreak? If so, then in what way? We study these questions for a set of macro‑cultural dimensions: collectivism/individualism, duty/joy, traditionalism/autonomy, and pro‑fertility/individual‑choice norms. We also study specific perceptions and norms like perceived threats to society (e.g. immigration) and hygiene norms. We draw on Evolutionary Modernization Theory, Parasite Stress Theory, and the Behavioural Immune System, and existing evidence, to make an overarching prediction: the COVID‑19 pandemic should increase collectivism, duty, traditionalism, conformity (i.e. pro‑fertility), and outgroup prejudice. We derive specific hypotheses from this prediction and use survey data from 29,761 respondents, in 55 cities and 43 countries, collected before (April–December 2019) and recently after the emergence of COVID‑19 (March–July 2020) to test them. We exploit variation in disease intensity across regions to test potential mechanisms behind any changes. The macro‑cultural dimensions remained stable. In contrast, specific perceptions and norms related to the pandemic changed: norms of hygiene substantially increased as did perceived threats related to disease. Taken together, our findings imply that macro‑cultural dimensions are primarily stable while specific perceptions and norms, particularly those related to the pandemic, can change rapidly. Our findings provide new evidence for theories of cultural change and have implications for policy, public health, daily life, and future trajectories of our societies.

In social interactions, human decision-making, attitudes, and beliefs about others coevolve. Their dynamics are affected by cost-benefit considerations, cognitive processes (such as cognitive dissonance, social projecting, and logic constraints), and social influences by peers (via descriptive and injunctive social norms) and by authorities (e.g., educational, cultural, religious, political, administrative, individual or group, real or fictitious). Here we attempt to disentangle some of this complexity by using an integrative mathematical modeling and a 35-day online behavioral experiment. We utilize data from a Common Pool Resources experiment with or without messaging promoting a group-beneficial level of resource extraction. We directly estimate the weights of different factors in decision-making and beliefs dynamics. We show that personal norms and conformity with expected peers’ actions have the largest impact on decision-making while material benefits and normative expectations have smaller effects. Individuals behaving prosocially are characterized by higher weights of personal norms while antisocial types are more affected by conformity. Messaging greatly decreases the weight of personal norms while simultaneously increases the weight of conformity. It also markedly influences personal norms and normative expectations. Both cognitive and social factors are important in the dynamics of beliefs. Between-individual variation is present in all measured characteristics and notably impacts observed group behavior. At the same time, gender differences are small. We argue that one can hardly understand social behavior without understanding the dynamics of personal beliefs and beliefs about others and that cognitive, social, and material factors all play important roles in these processes. Our results have implications for understanding and predicting social processes triggered by certain shocks (e.g., social unrest, a pandemic, or a natural disaster) and for designing policy interventions aiming to change behavior (e.g., actions aimed at environment protection or climate change mitigation). 

There is robust evidence in the experimental economics literature showing that monopoly power is affected by trading institutions. In this paper, we study whether trading institutions themselves can shape agents' market behavior through the formation of anchors. We recreate experimentally five different double-auction market structures (perfect competition, perfect competition with quotas, cartel on price, cartel on price with quotas, and monopoly) in a within-subject design, varying the order of markets implementation. We investigate whether monopoly power endures the formation of price anchors emerged in previously implemented market structures. Results from our classroom experiments suggest that double-auction trading institutions succeed in preventing monopolists from exploiting their market power. Furthermore, the formation of price anchors in previously implemented markets negatively impacts on monopolists' power in later market structures. 

Recent research at the cross between cognitive and social sciences is investigating the cognitive mechanisms behind cooperative decisions. One debated question is whether cooperative decisions are made faster than non-cooperative ones. Yet empirical evidence is still mixed. In this paper we explore the implications of individual heterogeneity in social value orientation for the effect of response time on cooperation. We conduct a meta-analysis of available experimental studies (n=8; treatments=16; 5,232 subjects). We report two main results: (i) the relation between response time and cooperation is moderated by social value orientation, such that it is positive for individualist subjects and negative for prosocial subjects; (ii) the relation between response time and cooperation is partly mediated by extremity of choice. These results suggest that highly prosocial subjects are fast to cooperate, highly individualist subjects are fast to defect, and subjects with weaker preferences make slower and less extreme decisions. We explain these results in terms of decision-conflict theory

We survey the growing literature on group formation in the context of three types of social dilemma games: public goods games, common pool resources, and the prisoner’s dilemma. The 62 surveyed papers study the effect of different sorting mechanisms – endogenous, endogenous with the option to play the game, and exogenous – on cooperation rates. Our survey shows that cooperators are highly sensitive to the presence of free-riders, independently of the sorting mechanism. We complement the survey with a meta-analysis showing no difference in terms of cooperation between studies implementing an endogenous and exogenous sorting. What is more, we find that it is no more likely for a cooperator to be matched with like-minded partners in endogenously formed groups than in exogenously formed groups. These observations are related. As we show in the survey, the success of a sorting method in matching like-minded individuals and the levels of cooperation are closely interlinked.