Inheritance, obligation, and responsibility in a commons dilemma

Commons dilemmas occur when individuals harvest from diminishing yet renewable resources like timber or fish populations. Individuals can sustain a resource for a group by harvesting conservatively (cooperation) or they can maximize short-term personal gain at the expense of the group by harvesting heavily (defection). However, if all defect, everyone gets less than if they had cooperated because the resource will deplete faster. The effects of perceived inheritance on harvesting decisions was examined in the context of a commons dilemma simulation. Undergraduates (N = 66) participated in a commons dilemma simulation using points recorded on a chalk board. Each point harvested earned participants an entry into a drawing for $50 in cash and prizes. Before harvesting from the resource, participants estimated the percentage of their peers who would preserve and exploit the resource and indicated how obligated they felt to preserve it. For the experimental manipulation, participants were assigned to the conservative, sustainable, or exploitive conditions who learned that a previous group had grown, kept steady, or diminished the resource, respectively. A control group simply played the commons game. Following the simulation, participants indicated their sense of responsibility for the outcome of the game, and completed an environmental attitudes questionnaire.