TY - JOUR

T1 - Cooperation in public good games. Calculated or confused?

AU - Goeschl, Timo

AU - Lohse, Johannes

N1 - Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the German Ministry for Education and Research under grant OIUV1012. They are furthermore thankful for helpful comments by seminar participants at the ESA Zurich, the HSC New York, the ZEW Mannheim, the University of Chicago, the University of Sterling, the IMEBESS Oxford and the SBRCC workshop in Kiel. Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2018/8/1

Y1 - 2018/8/1

N2 - Some recent experimental papers have claimed that contribution decisions in a public goods game (PGG) are more likely to be cooperative if based on intuition rather than reflection. In light of conflicting findings, this paper (i) reinvestigates the behavioral impact of so-called cognitive style in the PGG; and (ii) connects it with an earlier literature on the role of cognitive failure (confusion). This is motivated by the possibility that the method of time pressure, commonly used to identify cognitive style, invites confusion as a confounding factor. Two channels for such confounds are identified and experimentally tested: A heterogeneous treatment effect of time pressure depending on subjects’ confusion status and a direct impact of time pressure on subjects’ likelihood of being confused. Our reinvestigation of the behavioral impact of time pressure confirms that cognitive style matters, but that deliberation rather than intuition drives cooperation. The confounding effect of confusion is not found to be direct, but to operate through a heterogeneous treatment effect. Time pressure selectively reduces average contributions among those subjects whose contributions can confidently be interpreted as cooperative rather than confused.

AB - Some recent experimental papers have claimed that contribution decisions in a public goods game (PGG) are more likely to be cooperative if based on intuition rather than reflection. In light of conflicting findings, this paper (i) reinvestigates the behavioral impact of so-called cognitive style in the PGG; and (ii) connects it with an earlier literature on the role of cognitive failure (confusion). This is motivated by the possibility that the method of time pressure, commonly used to identify cognitive style, invites confusion as a confounding factor. Two channels for such confounds are identified and experimentally tested: A heterogeneous treatment effect of time pressure depending on subjects’ confusion status and a direct impact of time pressure on subjects’ likelihood of being confused. Our reinvestigation of the behavioral impact of time pressure confirms that cognitive style matters, but that deliberation rather than intuition drives cooperation. The confounding effect of confusion is not found to be direct, but to operate through a heterogeneous treatment effect. Time pressure selectively reduces average contributions among those subjects whose contributions can confidently be interpreted as cooperative rather than confused.

KW - Confusion

KW - Cooperation

KW - Experiment

KW - Public goods games

KW - Time pressure

KW - Economics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049338028&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2018.05.007

DO - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2018.05.007

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85049338028

VL - 107

SP - 185

EP - 203

JO - European Economic Review

JF - European Economic Review

SN - 0014-2921

ER -