A social categorization explanation for framing effects in nested social dilemmas

This study developed and tested the idea that social categorization process es help to explain framing effects in social dilemmas, Using self-categoriz ation theory, we predicted that members of a collective would cooperate mor e when they faced homogeneous rather than heterogeneous resource frames, We manipulated the starting point of resources for the members of each of two subgroups making up a larger collective in a nested social dilemma. The re sources of the subject's own subgroup started at the individual, subgroup, or collective level, and the resources of the opposing subgroup also starte d at the individual, subgroup, or collective level, The condition in which both subgroups' resources began at the collective level was similar to a tr aditional commons dilemma, while the condition in which both subgroups' res ources began at the individual level was similar to a traditional public go ods problem, The other conditions were new to this research domain. We foun d higher allocations to the collective account when the initial resource lo cation was the same for both subgroups (versus different for each subgroup) , even when this initial location was the subgroup or individual level. Whe reas previous explanations for framing effects cannot account for these res ults, social categorization processes provide a parsimonious explanation fo r the observed pattern of allocations. (C) 1999 Academic Press.