Collaborative Research: Status and the Organization of Collective Action

南卡罗来纳州布伦特·辛普森大学SES-064851加州大学伯克利分校罗布·威勒当一个团体或社会的成员可以通过不为公共利益做出贡献而选择搭乘其他人的贡献而获得物质利益时，就存在集体诉讼问题。尽管存在障碍，但我们知道，团体经常采取集体行动，并在这样做的过程中产生公共产品。他们是如何做到这一点的？他们最成功的条件是什么？研究人员将使用状态特征理论来回答三个相互关联的问题，即群体中的地位等级如何组织集体行动并帮助解决集体行动问题：1)当每个小组成员对集体行动做出贡献时，地位等级是如何影响的？2)一个小组的地位等级如何影响每个成员付出了多少？3)这些早期的贡献如何影响其他人的付出？PI预测，地位较高的群体成员将在集体行动的早期阶段给予，在较高水平给予，并将比地位较低的成员对他人的贡献产生更大的影响。由于地位等级有助于构建对集体行动的贡献序列，地位分化的群体有望产生比地位未分化的群体更大的公共产品。PIs将在三项实验室研究中测试他们的论点；在所有三项研究中，他们都将试验性地操纵状态信息，并衡量对与集体行动相关的各种活动的影响。对集体行动如何由群体内的地位差异塑造的更好的理解，为实验室外的一系列应用带来了很大的希望。洞察影响一个群体的生产力和实现集体目标的能力的因素，对于解决集体行动问题至关重要，如保护环境和其他可耗尽的资源、组织灾害应对、慈善活动和有效的组织领导。还可以利用这些洞察力为干预措施提供信息，以防止市中心帮派和恐怖组织等不受欢迎的集体行动。特别是，最终研究的结果将提供关于地位差异是否以及在什么条件下可能导致更高(或更低)的群体生产力的见解。了解地位差异对一个群体生产公共产品的能力的影响，对于最大限度地提高组织、社会运动、慈善活动、非营利组织和其他群体的生产力和效率的应用努力具有潜在的广泛效用。

SES- 0647169Brent SimpsonUniversity of South CarolinaSES-064851Robb WillerUniversity of California, BerkeleyCollective action problems exist when members of a group or society can materially profit by not contributing to the public good, choosing instead to free-ride on the contributions of others. Despite the hurdles involved, we know that groups often do act collectively and, in doing so, produce public goods. How do they do it and what are the conditions that make them most successful? The investigators will use Status Characteristics theory to answer three inter-related questions about how status hierarchies within groups organize collective actions and help solve collective action problems: 1) How does a status hierarchy affect when each group member gives to a collective action? 2) How does a group's status hierarchy affect how much each member gives? 3) How do these early contributions affect how much others' give? The PIs predict that higher status group members will give in earlier stages of collective action, give at higher levels, and will have greater influence over others' contributions than those with less status. Because the status hierarchy helps structure sequences of contributions to collective action, status differentiated groups are expected to produce larger public goods than status undifferentiated groups. The PIs will test their arguments across three laboratory studies; in all three studies, they will experimentally manipulate status information and measure the impact on various activities relevant to collective action. An improved understanding of how collective action is shaped by status differences within groups holds much promise for an array of applications outside the lab. Insight into the factors that affect a group's ability to be productive and achieve collective goals is essential to solving collective action problems like the protection of environmental and other depletable resources, organization of disaster response, charity drives, and effective organizational leadership. These insights can also be harnessed to inform interventions to prevent unwanted collective actions such as inner-city gangs and terrorist organizations. In particular, the results of the final study will offer insights on whether and under what conditions status differentiation might lead to greater (or lesser) group productivity. Understanding the impact of status differentiation on a group's ability to produce public goods is of potentially widespread utility to applied efforts to maximize the productivity and efficiency of organizations, social movements, charity drives, non-profit organizations, and other groups.