Abstract

PINILLA LOPEZ, Raúl Fernando  and  PARAMO, Pablo. Cooperative and selfish urban behaviors: the citizen's dilemma. rev.latinoam.psicol. [online]. 2020, vol.52, pp.104-114.  Epub Mar 01, 2021. ISSN 0120-0534.  https://doi.org/10.14349/rlp.2020.v52.11.

In public spaces, citizens face decisions that involve selfish or social cooperation behaviors, that affects the quality of urban life. What makes that their decision benefit the social group instead their individual benefit only? This article explores the dilemmas that individuals meet in the urban environment from the experimental model of game theory. Participated 80 people who had to decide, in pairs, between a responsible urban behavior (CUR, Spanish acronym) versus an uncivic behavior. Participants were distributed by random into four groups, consisting of 20 couples each one (on average). Each individual had to choose to act cooperatively or selfishly depending on their partner's decision to get the maximum benefit from the situation. Groups differed according the amount of benefits associated to reciprocity, high medium or nothing (altruism) and its concrete or abstract value. The results showed that the decision to opt for a CUR depends mostly on the magnitude of the benefit and the probability of receiving reciprocity, and to a lesser extent on altruism or the type of CUR involved in the situation. Findings are discussed based on their implications for citizen cooperation.

Keywords : Prosociality; social cooperation; responsible urban behavior; game theory; cooperation; self-control.

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