Gender and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

University South Carolina Research Foundation, Columbia SC

Investigators

Abstract

This research extends recent work on the conditions under which gender affects cooperation in "social dilemmas," or collective action situations that pose conflicts between the individual's own interests and the group's interests. Despite theoretical expectations of gender differences in which women are seen as more likely to cooperate than men, nearly four decades of research has failed to find clear patterns consistent with these expectations. The first goal of this research is to examine whether the failure to draw more definitive conclusions from previous work stems from the fact that past studies have relied exclusively on the "Prisoners' Dilemma" (PD) paradigm to look for gender differences. Several theories suggest we should expect gender differences in cooperation, but not necessarily in PD. More specifically, these theories predict that females are more likely to respond non-cooperatively to the "fear component" in social dilemmas (the prospect that one's cooperation may be exploited), while males are more likely to respond non-cooperatively to the "greed component" (the temptation to free-ride on others' cooperation). Since the PD situation contains both fear and greed components, it is not surprising that previous research has not shown clearer evidence of gendered responses. Two experimental studies will be conducted here in an effort to disentangle the fear and greed components of cooperation. The first study varies the relative size of the fear and greed components. The second study investigates the effects of the gender composition of groups on cooperation. Because social dilemmas are inherent in a wide range of social, economic, and political situations, the broader impacts of this research lie, in part, in its capacity to illuminate the factors that lead to cooperation or failure to cooperate in situations where there are conflicts between individual and collective interests. Further, this research should produce a better understanding of the determinants of gender differences in behavior in a variety of collective action contexts, from everyday social exchanges in friendships and families, between neighbors, in workplaces, as well as in contributions to and participation in large-scale organizations and collective action.