Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of self-categorization, criticality of group reward and expectancy for other member's cooperation on the cooperative choice in the solution of social dilemma. It was hypothesized that the cooperative choice for collective interests will be maximized as function of group identification, perceived criticality for the group outcomes and the expectancy of other member's cooperation. The 3 way interaction effect was also predicted. To testify the hypothesis two experiments were conducted in two different types of social dilemma, ie, public goods dilemma and quasi common resource dilemma. 192 college students participated in one of two experiments. The results of the experiments showed that the cooperative choice increased in intergroup comparison condition than in interpersonal comparison condition. It was also shown that there was linear relationship between the criticality and the level of the cooperative choice. The predicted 3 way interaction effect of self-categorization, criticality of group reward and cooperation expectancy was only partly supported in experiment II. Simple interaction analysis revealed that two way interaction effect of self-categorization and cooperation expectancy was statistically significant only in low criticality condition.