Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/98459 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Jena Economic Research Papers No. 2014-011
Publisher: 
Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Abstract: 
We investigate experimentally the underlying motivations and individual dierences with regard to the participation in between-group conflict in nested social dilemmas. In our nested social dilemmas, the collective is divided into two groups, and individuals allocate tokens between a private, a group-specific, and a collective good. We vary the marginal per capita return of the group-specific and collective good in order to manipulate the motivational within- and between group conflicts. A first experiment shows that a between-group conflict leads to within-group cooperation and particularly individuals with positive other-regarding preferences (prosocials) react to a between-group conflict by contributing to the group-specific good. Hence, paradoxically, individuals with positive other-regarding preferences may foster between-group conflicts. A second experiment reveals that prosocials' contributions to the group-specific or collective good vary as a function of the personal costs of within-group versus collective cooperation, supporting the weighted average social preference theory by Charness and Rabin (2002).
Subjects: 
between-group conflict
local and global public goods
nested social dilemma
other-regarding preferences
JEL: 
C72
C92
D07
H41
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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