Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Framing, Affect, and Decision-Making in Social Dilemmas

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Situations in which individual interests are interdependent with (and partially in conflict with) collective interests are abundant in our daily lives. We encounter social dilemmas in family, work, and social settings, such as when we must decide how much time and effort to contribute to a team project or whether to drive or take public transportation to work. The proposed research examines how subtle variations in the way a message or situation is framed can have important implications for the way people think about and respond to that event. Preliminary research has shown that highlighting the negative collective outcome of non-cooperation can undermine pro-social behavior in dilemmas in which cooperation involves personal restraint from obtaining an immediate benefit, but can promote selfless behavior when cooperation involves giving to the group. The current work explores the affective mediators of this process. In the proposed study, individuals in three-person groups must decide how to distribute a set of 20 quarters between a personal fund (property of the individual only) and a group fund (shared by everyone in the group). We will measure the impact of three different framing manipulations (decision framing, outcome framing, and payoff structure) on individuals' mood and on their willingness to allocate quarters to their group (cooperation). For the decision framing manipulation, the quarters will either start in the group fund and participants will have the opportunity to take for themselves, or the quarters will start in the personal fund and participants will have the opportunity to give to the group. The quarters in the group fund will face either a bonus or a penalty (outcome frame), and that outcome will be distributed either a little at a time (continuous payoff) or in a lump sum depending on whether or not a specified number of quarters are allocated to the group (step-level payoff). We predict that the penalty outcome frame will result in a negative mood, which will prompt high levels of giving when the decision involves giving (cooperation) and taking when the decision involves taking (non-cooperation). The pattern of responses will be opposite (low levels of giving and taking, respectively) when the outcome involves a bonus, which is predicted to increase positive mood. Because the step-level payoff provides people with a specific goal upon which to coordinate their behavior, cooperation should be less influenced by mood in the step-level than in the continuous conditions.