Actions do not always speak louder than words: the role of social incentives when choosing and executing cooperative effort

Abstract

Financial (dis)incentives (e.g. bonuses, taxes) as well as social rewards (e.g. reputation building) have typically been proposed as methods to encourage greater cooperation for the benefit of all, but when cooperation requires exertion of effort, such interventions might not always be effective. While financial and social rewards tend to be highly motivating when choosing to exert effort, evidence suggests that they have less of an effect on behavior during effort execution. The aim of this exploratory study was to incorporate these insights into empirical investigation of the effects of social incentives on cooperative effort. To this end, we modified a Public Goods Game task to require effort contributions in exchange for social and financial rewards. Crucial manipulation involved explicitly separating the choices that people made from the cooperative actions they exerted. Our findings suggest, in line with effort-based decision-making models, that social incentives have a stronger effect on cooperative effort when they are made salient during choice than during execution. This study demonstrates potential benefits of eliciting a priori declarations of cooperative effort tied to social incentives to encourage greater effort for the benefit of all.