Group Composition and Conditional Cooperation

by Smith, Alexander

This paper examines how group composition affects conditional cooperation in a repeated voluntary contribution mechanism linear public good game. Identity was created using a team-building activity and subjects were assigned to groups of six consisting of a varying number of subjects from two teams. Contributions to the public good were decreasing in polarization within the group and were higher among majority members than minority members. Also, the relationships between contributions and beliefs about the contributions of others indicate that conditional cooperation was stronger among subjects from the same team than among subjects from different teams.

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