The structure of a social dilemma lies behind many environmental problems. Mingling temporal aspects of resources with the structure of the social dilemma often leads to wrong conclusions. Therefore, it is worth analytically separating temporal aspects from structural aspects of the dilemma....

The puzzle about collective actors is in the focus of this contribution. The first section enters into the question of the adequateness and inadequateness of reductionist explanations for the description of entities. The considerations in this part do not draw on systems and hence not on...

Simon’s (1955) famous paper was one of the first to cast doubt on the validity of rational choice theory; it has been supplemented by many more papers in the last three and a half decades. Nevertheless, rational choice theory plays a crucial role in classical and neoclassical economic theory,...

We experimentally study the effect of asymmetry on cooperation in a 40 period prisoner's dilemma game in fixed partner design. We distinguish between a high and low payoff symmetric prisoner's dilemma and an asymmetric game combined out of both symmetric ones. Asymmetry significantly decreases...

Common research on decision-making investigates non-interdependent situations, i.e., “games against nature”. However, humans are social beings and many decisions are made in social settings, where they mutually influence each other, i.e., “strategic games”. Mathematical game theory gives...

Broken Windows: the metaphor has changed New York and Los Angeles. Yet it is far from undisputed whether the broken windows policy was causal for reducing crime. In a series of lab experiments we put two components of the theory to the test. We show that first impressions and early punishment of...

Both social psychology and experimental economics empirically investigate social dilemmas. However, these two disciplines sometimes use different notions for very similar scenarios. While it is irrelevant for economists whether an experimental public-good game is conceptualised as a take-some or...

We experimentally study the effect of asymmetry on cooperation in a 40 period prisoner's dilemma game in fixed partner design. We distinguish between a high and low payoff symmetric prisoner's dilemma and an asymmetric game combined out of both symmetric ones. Asymmetry significantly decreases...