Disclosing Group Members' Identities Reduces Cooperation in an Artefactual Public Goods Field Experiment.

ABSTRACT: Social dilemmas in the real world, such as pollution and the extraction of resources, often differ regarding the visibility of involved actors and their behavior. While publicly disclosing individual decisions in social dilemmas is known to increase cooperation, little is known about whether revealing individual identities specifically makes a difference. This study uses an artefactual public good field experiment conducted in rural Namibia with 144 villagers, who are randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: one in which group members' identities are not disclosed and one in which they are. Individual contributions to the public good remain private in both cases, so the only difference lies in whether participants can see who their group members are. In addition, the experi

SUBMITTER: Hoenow NC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12644118 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature