Working Paper: NBER ID: w20234
Authors: Uri Gneezy; Andreas Leibbrandt; John A. List
Abstract: The functioning and well-being of any society and organization critically hinges on norms of cooperation that regulate social activities. Empirical evidence on how such norms emerge and in which environments they thrive remains a clear void in the literature. To provide an initial set of insights, we overlay a set of field experiments in a natural setting. Our approach is to compare behavior in Brazilian fishermen societies that differ along one major dimension: the workplace organization. In one society (located by the sea) fishermen are forced to work in groups whereas in the adjacent society (located on a lake) fishing is inherently an individual activity. We report sharp evidence that the sea fishermen trust and cooperate more and have greater ability to coordinate group actions than their lake fishermen counterparts. These findings are consistent with the argument that people internalize social norms that emerge from specific needs and support the idea that socio-ecological factors play a decisive role in the proliferation of pro-social behaviors.
Keywords: cooperation norms; workplace organization; field experiments; Brazilian fishermen; socioecological factors
JEL Codes: C93; J0
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| workplace organization (L23) | emergence of cooperation norms (F55) |
| fishermen working in groups (Q22) | higher levels of trust and cooperation (C71) |
| sea fishermen (Q22) | higher trust and cooperation compared to lake fishermen (Q22) |
| group-based work environment (C92) | norm of cooperation (C71) |
| ecological and social pressures faced by sea fishermen (Q22) | internalization of cooperation norms (F55) |
| lack of differences in cooperativeness among women (C71) | norms do not extend to other societal members (Z13) |