Investigating the Ability of Pro-social Emotions to Enhance Cooperative Behavior

Vergara Sobarzo, Lucía A

Publication:
Investigating the Ability of Pro-social Emotions to Enhance Cooperative Behavior

dc.contributor.advisor	John Spraggon
dc.contributor.advisor	John Stranlund
dc.contributor.author	Vergara Sobarzo, Lucía A
dc.contributor.department	University of Massachusetts Amherst
dc.contributor.department	Resource Economics
dc.date	2023-09-23T07:45:24.000
dc.date.accessioned	2024-04-26T20:36:49Z
dc.date.available	2013-01-24T00:00:00Z
dc.date.issued	2013-01-01
dc.date.submitted	May
dc.description.abstract	This research investigates the use of pro-social emotions to improve cooperation. In particular, it tries to reconcile the results from Noussair and Tucker (2007) and Lopez et al. (2010). To reach this goal the experiment considers different degrees of revelation: no revelation, partial and full disclosure of information. Additionally, I use different microeconometric specifications to accommodate different hypothesis about the motivation of the subjects. My results diverge from those of Lopez et al. because I find that revealing the decision of a single subject at random does not significantly increase cooperation, which is the main result of these authors. Also, my findings indicate that cooperation is triggered only when I reveal information of either 3 or all the subjects in the group, the last case being similar to the public observability of Noussair and Tucker. These authors find a non-permanent increase in contributions, so I do but using a positive framed-experiment with disclosure of additional information, the group’s earning loss. Therefore, random revelation together with the disclosure of information about subjects’ decisions appears to be a good alternative to promote cooperation in a sample pool of undergraduate students. Also, I observe a reduction in contributions over time, but in the random revelation treatment this decay by less than 40%. The most interesting result that I obtain is the evidence of altruism and positive reciprocity in the specification of Ashley et al. (2003, 2010), instead of the matching in contributions reported by these authors.
dc.description.degree	Master of Science (M.S.)
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.7275/3613698
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/44524
dc.relation.url	https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2132&context=theses&unstamped=1
dc.source.status	published
dc.subject	Experimental economics
dc.subject	voluntary contributions mechanism
dc.subject	public goods
dc.subject	laboratory experiment.
dc.subject	Agricultural and Resource Economics
dc.subject	Behavioral Economics
dc.subject	Econometrics
dc.subject	Public Economics
dc.title	Investigating the Ability of Pro-social Emotions to Enhance Cooperative Behavior
dc.type	open
dc.type	article
dc.type	thesis
digcom.contributor.author	isAuthorOfPublication\|email:lvergara@som.umass.edu\|institution:University of Massachusetts Amherst\|Vergara Sobarzo, Lucía A
digcom.date.embargo	2013-01-24T00:00:00-08:00
digcom.identifier	theses/1090
digcom.identifier.contextkey	3613698
digcom.identifier.submissionpath	theses/1090
dspace.entity.type	Publication