AN ADVISER IN RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT SITUATIONS - CONFIGURAL WEIGHING OFRECOMMENDATIONS

The major aim of the present study is to investigate how an adviser's recommendations affect the behavior of actors in resource management s ituations. Some real-life examples of resource management situations a re: fishing the seas and water consumption in a period of draught. In previous research (see Messick and Brewer, 1983) it was found that, wh en the situation had a social dilemma character, subjects deviated fro m the optimal collective harvest in a greedy or self-advantageous way. However, it was not always clear what was the optimal amount to harve st as a collective. Therefore, the biases may have been due to self-ad vantageously biased estimates of this optimum, rather than to a total disregard of the collective interest. In that case, an adviser might b e able to reduce these biases. However, based on a study by Birnbaum a nd Stegner (1979), we predicted that compliance with recommendations w ould be biased in the same direction as intended behavior before advic e was given. In two studies, employing resource management settings, w e found support for this prediction.