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Basic Procedure
Each participant receives an initial "endowment" of 20 each round.
During each round, you may contribute up between 0 and all of the endowment you receive that round to the "public good"
We then total up all the contributions and multiple by 1.5
Then we divide this up among ALL players (without regard to how much each contributed).
Three Variations
In group 1, the game is played "confidentially," that is, the players do not find out what the other participants have done in each round, only the aggregate results.
http://www.wikidot.com/doc:quick-reference
In group 2, the group members have to announce what their contributions were.
Group 3 is like group 2 except participants have an opportunity to punish any group members whose behavior they did not appreciate. Punishment costs $1 for each one imposed. The cost to the recipient of the punishment is to forfeit 10% of the return from the public kitty that they would have received.
VARIATIONS: One group tight knit. One group puts someone in charge?
Imagine that your grade for the exercise will be based on the size of your balance after ten rounds as follows
Balance | Grade |
---|---|
270-300 | A+ |
240-269 | A |
210-239 | A- |
180-209 | B+ |
150-179 | B |
120-149 | B- |
90-119 | C+ |
60-89 | C |
30-59 | D |
<30 | F |
Homework
Write a short (250 words) essay describing the game and what happened, and offer suggestions for how a group could maximize it's collective outcome. The description can be very brief noting that a group of students played a standard "public goods game" Why do you think people who did not contribute maximally did not? Or, why do you think people contributed more than they "had to"?
Your essay should have a title and a works cited section using standard citation format. Page format shown below.
Here's a paragraph from Gintis, et al. (2003)
The public goods game has been analyzed in a series of papers by the social psychologist Yamagishi (1986, 1988), by the political scientist Ostrom, Walker, and Gardner (1992), and by economists Fehr and Ga¨chter (Fehr & Gachter, 2000, 2002; Ga¨chter & Fehr, 1999). These researchers uniformly found the groups exhibit a much higher rate of cooperation than can be expected assuming the standard economic model of the self-interested actor, and this is especially the case when subjects are given the option of incurring a cost to themselves in order to punish free riders.
You can simply mention the public goods game and cite Gintis et al. and Yamagishi 1986:
- Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. 2003. "Explaining altruistic behavior in humans," Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.
- Yamagishi, T. 1986. "The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110–116.
Page Format
Title of Essay Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed placerat imperdiet mattis. Pellentesque eget nisi risus. Nulla dignissim neque semper purus adipiscing et adipiscing lectus laoreet. Aliquam adipiscing nisl quis augue tempor mattis. Etiam malesuada turpis sed orci fringilla nec lobortis velit venenatis. Nulla molestie, est id posuere gravida, justo orci lacinia mi, eget mollis sem felis id leo. Fusce eget sem ut lacus pharetra tempor. Nulla in enim enim, nec rutrum felis. Nam eu nisl sem. Maecenas congue sem non neque auctor molestie. Pellentesque mattis dictum nunc, at elementum libero tristique sit amet. Mauris venenatis vulputate enim, vitae sollicitudin diam porttitor eu. Vivamus sed arcu sed neque aliquet venenatis. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Morbi feugiat tincidunt eros at vestibulum. Fusce massa lectus, porttitor eget sodales nec, adipiscing vulputate eros. In malesuada sem vitae ligula mollis id molestie ipsum suscipit. Ut pellentesque elit sit amet arcu molestie quis pellentesque lorem interdum. Fusce interdum interdum dapibus. Sed ultricies neque rutrum nibh sollicitudin congue. Curabitur malesuada consectetur dui, et commodo nunc vestibulum eget. Vestibulum vitae turpis tellus, in hendrerit mi. In enim sem, congue non porttitor nec, elementum ut metus. Nunc et dui pretium leo gravida porta ac vel mi. Sed ullamcorper quam vitae tellus cursus posuere. Nunc suscipit tellus at augue vestibulum a dapibus nulla sodales. Proin id vestibulum risus. t, nec facilisis erat eros sit amet lorem. Sed quis purus odio, eget aliquam orci. Vivamus sagittis orci in ligula feugiat sed dapibus dolor posuere. Aliquam ac tincidunt velit. Works CitedAuthorLname, Fname. Year. "Article Title." Journal Name volume, number: pages. |
In an undergraduate Social Theory class, some students played a public goods game for the purpose of social experiment. In this game, each of the four players in each team recorded for each round the amount they gave, their predictions for the percentage of players on their team who would give nothing and the average amount players would give each, the total amount everyone gave for that turn, the payoff for each player, and the net income of their own turn. In the second half of the game, the ability to punish, at a direct (and monetary) cost to oneself, those who gave nothing or too little was introduced.
The results of this game were perfectly in line with the predictions (and results) of Fair and Gintis, in that more and more free-riding occurred as the first half of the game went on (in which there was no option to punish), and that free-riding was drastically reduced if not entirely eliminated in the second half of the game (in which the option to punish was introduced and utilized by players). This would imply that punishment, when present, deterred excessive free-riding behavior and kept the total give of each team at a higher level. It would seem that those who free-rode did so in order to maximize their net return, and thus they usually refrained from free-riding if they were punished strongly enough due to the net loss that this punishment transformed their free-riding action into. However, this would not seem to explain why some players contributed more than they had to, unless one concluded that the punishment had a positively reinforcing as well as a negatively reinforcing effect on the players. Yet the results indicate that this is not the case, as those who contributed more than they had to did so before the punishment was even introduced. Thus, the results would seem to indicate that these “benevolent actors” may have been “strong reciprocators” who gave more in order to encourage the others to give more, and the fact that the punishers tended to be those who gave more would support this.
Rose LeCount
Mills College Anth115
9/12/15
(250 words)
During a class exercise we were divided into groups to play a pubic goods game (Gintis, 2003). Each person in the group is allocated 20 'dollars' per round. Each person then decides how much they want to put in the pot which is multiplied by 1.2 and divided by the number of people and redistributed. This game illustrates the idea of free-riding, you can gain a lot without having to give a lot. Our group started off with a mix of giving levels but quickly realized we were all losing money, and through lobbying and social pressure, were able to up the group gives.
During the second round of the game, you can punish those you feel deserve it. To punish one player would cost you two units. Immediately our group all gave more than we had in round one. For ten sets in round two there were only three total punishments. The threat of punishment raised and maintained the overall give amount. The fact that strong reciprocators were willing to punish even if it made them worse off, is another interesting point of the game as it illustrates a way society polices itself.
When people feel they are being supervised they self-regulate and become their own jailers (Foucault, 1981). When individuals realized their give was public, the reaction of the rest of the group caused people to self-regulate to a social standard before punishment. If it were anonymous I believe there would have been lower gives and more punishments.
Works Cited
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. 2003. "Explaining altruistic behavior in humans," Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.
Yamagishi, T. 1986. "The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110–116.
Foucault, M. 1981. The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books
Public Good Game and How People React
Alexina Estrada
Mills College Soc112
12 September 2015
Word Count: 324
In History of Sociological Theory, students got into a group of about 5-7. The objective of the game was to have the most running total at the end, and to do that you could either contribute to the group (society) or just take what was contributed. In my group specifically we had 7 people. At first, when trying to get a feel for the game, we all began to contribute a little bit, and at least one person would contribute a lot. As the game progressed however, things got interesting. There was always someone who would contribute significantly less that everyone else. When that began to happen, we saw how the one person was gaining more running total than the rest of us. Some people then began to contribute almost the whole 20 and we started to see a bit larger of a payback. By the end of the game, people were starting to contribute about the same amount every round, but even if you contributed one or two points less, you were getting punished.
I think that when people weren't contributing anything, they were doing it with themselves in mind. Like we said in class, we were pretending that the amount we ended up with at the end of the game was what we would be graded on. So, of course, people kept themselves in mind and were contributing less. At least, until we got to the round where we could punish each other. Even then, everyone was contributing a bit more, but some people still had themselves in mind. I think that when people contributed a lot more, almost their whole 20, they still have themselves in mind. The difference is, they understood that to bring their amount up, they would also have to bring other people's amount's up. Even though the act rewarded everyone, the people putting in the most had their own amount still in the front of their mind.
Public Goods Game Response
Savanna Ames
Mills College ANTH 115
September 13, 2015
Word Count: 227
The Public Goods games that we played in class showed us first hand some problems with social order and what can happen when humans are left to figure some things out by themselves. In the game no one was supposed to communicate strategies between one another, we were each given $20 to either donate or keep. Our personal profit depended on what others and I decided to give away. The trick was that if everyone decided to be good and donate all that they had then everyone would profit more from the game. Since we weren’t able to strategize together though everyone was left on their own and pitted against one another or in other words war of all against all in a way.
Since this was the case hardly anyone (at least in my group) donated all $20, the most that was given was maybe $18. If we had been able to communicate with one another then we might have realized that if we all donated the full $20 every time then we would all profit more as a group and individually (coordination and cooperation). Obviously as we have talked about in class, when it comes down to most things humans are going to think about themselves first before others.
Publics Good Game
Betsy Perez
Mills College SOC116
13 September 2015
Word Count: 324
The Public Goods Game is a game where each of the players starts out with an “endowment” of 20 each round. As a player, you are able to contribute between nothing or all of the endowment to the “pubic good”. At the end, you divide the amount given amongst all of them even though some of the players may not have contributed. You can essentially make money without giving any of your endowment.
In the first game, there was absolutely no punishment. If one of the players decided to not contribute anything on a round, there were no consequences. In the beginning of the game, our group started out strong with the endowments. However, as we got towards the middle, we all started to contribute less. At this point, I think we fell into that mentality of self-interest that Ken Taylor and John Perry spoke about in Philosophy Talk. The cooperation in our group broke for a bit because we started to think about ourselves versus a whole.
The second game was different because there was a punishment. If someone thought you didn’t give enough, then part of your earnings would be taken away. As a result of not giving enough, some players did get punished and began to donate more to the public good.
I think that the players decided to give more than they had to as a result of mutual expectations. In Philosophy Talk, they spoke about how we expect everyone to do certain things like driving on the right side of the road because everyone does that; so why won’t you? I felt like this was especially prevalent because we were face to face with each other. We can get others to contribute more by being cooperative. Talking things out worked for one round because all of us donated our funds and earned some back. So if everyone is willing to cooperate, then we would be able to move forward.
References
Philosophy Talk. "Cooperation and Conflict"
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. 2003. "Explaining altruistic behavior in humans," Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.
Yamagishi, T. 1986. "The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110–116
Analyzing Public Goods Game
Akila Y. Mwongozi
Mills College soc 116
14 September 2015
(386 words)
The Public Goods Game is a game where a group of students receive an endowment and must individually decide how much of said endowment will be given up for the public good, all the while considering punishments and rewards. The game was played in four rounds and a student's total balance after the completion of the game determined the grade assigned to them.
There was no initial punishment given for contributing little to no part of each one's endowment for the first two rounds. According to my group, the lack of punishment gave no incentive to contribute much to the total give. Another observation is that, because no one knew what they were contributing to, they felt no need to give more than an average of 5 out of their 20 portions of endowment in those first two rounds. It became a game of wondering about the pay off; dependent on another person's giving. The first and very natural reason why people give more than required is, because regardless of it being a game, givers tend to stick true to their nature. However, the second reason is more strategic in that they just want to see how one person's actions could tip the scale. If everyone else had contributed a lot more, I might have reduced my contribution to zero every time to just see the outcome.
Due to prompting from Professor Ryan and the ability to punish meager contributors, the second game was bound to be different. For the last two rounds, not giving enough was punishable. As a result, the one who punished had to weigh the cost of punishment against their total return. Conversely, those who gave very little had to think twice about the amount contributed as they would lose 10% of the return for each punishment. As a result of continual punishment for the lowest and sometimes second lowest contributor, everyone in the group decided to increase their contributions.
I'd like to see the game played in a more controlled and formal setting. I believe time constraints as well as lack of specificity affected our game negatively. The outcome, however, does model how things tend to work in social settings. This game demonstrates cooperation, coordination, and illustrates the free rider mentality all at the same time; not unlike real life situations.
Works Cited
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. 2003. "Explaining altruistic behavior in humans," Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.
Yamagishi, T. 1986. "The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110–116.
Public Goods Game Review
Rayna Thomas
Mills College Soc112
14 September 2015
The public goods game was created to test group cooperation. This was done by using groups of four and asking a series of questions related to how much a person would donate and late, if they would punish a person for not donating enough. For the first round played the game only 3 times out of 10 did someone not donate money. On average, $15 was donated each time.
For the second round we were given the opportunity to punish (give them a penalty) a person for not donating enough money. To maximize the collective outcome everyone could have donated the full $20 so everyone benefits. No one in my group gave a full $20; I think this was because we did not want to lose money if someone did not donate. No one wanted to be the person to donate the most because they would lose the most. One thing I noticed was when a person would donate the most out of the group, the next time around, they ended up donating the least amount. I think this happened because they did not want to put in more money if other people were unwilling to do so. To maximize the outcome we could have discussed as a group to give $20. Maybe next time.
Works Cited
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. 2003. "Explaining altruistic behavior in humans," Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.
Yamagishi, T. 1986. "The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110–116.
Do People Care About the Public Good?
Katherine Schluntz
Mills College Anth 115
15 September 2015
(249 words)
In this game, we each started with 20, let’s say dollars. Each person puts as much of their 20 as they would like into a pool, the pool is met with an additional 20%, and then it is split back up between the participants. In the second half of the game, you were able to “punish” someone if you felt that the person didn’t contribute enough. This cost you $2 per punishment, and the person you punished lost 10% of their portion of the pool.
I think the people who contributed least had many reasons to do so. The first round I contributed 20, and everyone else contributed much less, so the next round, I contributed 5. Another reason is I think people thought they would get a lot more if everyone contributed but them.
The next round, when we could punish people, there was a higher average contribution. Everyone contributed at least a little, and they contributed more on average. When a person didn’t contribute enough one round, and they were punished, the next round, they would contribute more.
I think the best way to get people to contribute more is to show them the results from a game like this. Most of the time, I got less money in the end than if we had all contributed equally. If we had talked about it, agreed, and done it that way, we could have gotten more money as a group, but individualism isn’t really going to allow that.
Works cited
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. 2003. "Explaining altruistic behavior in humans," Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.
Yamagishi, T. 1986. "The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110–116.
Sophia Draznin-Nagy
Mills College Anth115
15 September 2015
Words: 222
Playing the Public Goods game during class tested cooperation under the influences of selfishness and face-to-face interaction. Each teammate was allotted $20 for each of the 10 rounds played. Each teammate then gets to decide how much they want to donate of their $20 to a collective pool, knowing they will either get back more or less than they donated, depending on the other members.
One of the reasons I think people did not contribute a large portion of their $20 each time is because we knew it was an experiment. Because of this awareness, it was more interesting to see how the amount fluctuated with each round. For example, it took four rounds before anyone in my group donated $0, but after that initial (lack of) donation, almost every round had someone who didn’t donate anything.
Once the aspect of punishment was added I thought donations would increase drastically. Instead, it seemed like more donations ranged from $7-13. People still didn’t want to donate everything, but they also had to think about how little they could donate without being punished. The punishment round seemed to be more “bare minimum” donations with sporadic moments of generosity. The one or two donations over $13 may have appeased the guilt of so many low donations because it would be easier to validate their pattern.
Works Cited:
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. 2003. "Explaining altruistic behavior in humans," Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 153–172.
Yamagishi, T. 1986. "The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110–116.
Public Goods Game
Mary Ruiz
The public goods game we played in class “gave” each student in groups of 4-5 people 20, non-existing, dollars. Each game around each individual person got to decide how much money to give towards the “public good”. At the end of the rounds the money is distributed evenly between everyone, even if a player did not give any money towards the public good. For this first time around there are no ways to push someone towards donating more to the public good. However, the second time around you could influence a player to donate more through punishment which would result in a loss of money for them. The punisher also has to pay to punish.
In the beginning of the game my group began the round by contributing an ok amount. It was nothing too high and nothing particularly low. However, one person did contribute a full 20. As the rounds went one some of us stuck to our original donation number while one-two people went lower. We also had a couple of rounds where all of us gave a larger amount. When punishments were introduced things began to change. Our original donation numbers were too low for some, but no one punished at first. I interpreted this as a collective agreement to not use the punishment and instead just play as if it did not exist. However, I was wrong. People began to use the punishment. There were times when I thought about punishing someone, but did not and yet they still punished me. It was odd for me to be able to feel like I was communicating silently with my group like in the first round to suddenly begin reading their expressions differently as something more threatening because they could punish me at any time. Moreover, I began to notice that just because we had three rounds of people donating a lot of money there was no social order to make sure we kept that momentum.