Precommitment and Cooperation in Stochastic Versus Deterministic Social Dilemmas

Abstract: Many real-world social dilemmas require interdependent people to repeatedly protect against a large loss that has a low probability of occurring. Examples include protecting against disease outbreak (e.g., COVID-19), terrorism (shared border security), or extreme weather events (from climate change). Decisions on whether to invest in protection may be made year by year, or investment may be precommitted in advance for a number of years. How does precommitment influence cooperation? A series of four studies addressed this question, using incentive-compatible, repeated social dilemmas with large-magnitude, low-probability losses. These studies revealed that in stochastic social dilemmas, precommitment increases cooperation, but in deterministic social dilemmas, precommitment decreases cooperation.

Keywords: social dilemma; uncertainty; time; losses; interdependent security; choice bracketing