Panel 12.6. Using Games and Experiments for Behavioral Research: Opportunities and Challenges in an Era of Abundance

Overuse of shared resources is a major concern for many communities. While the positive effect of deliberation and facilitation on collective action outcomes are well-recognized in the literature, there is no conclusive theory on why deliberation improves cooperative outcomes. Studies show that formal mechanism -- rule-based group deliberation – can improve cooperation among resource users, but less is known about the role of informal discourse in shared resource governance. We fill this gap by asking: what is the role of informal discourse in forging cooperation and trust? How formal mechanism intersects with informal mechanism in shaping positive outcomes? We use data from Foraging game that includes 339 rounds of communication from 113 groups and 452 participants. To answer this question, we apply structural topic models to the game dataset. Preliminary analysis suggests that there are different types of informal discourses and that the sequence and timing of informal discourse tend to have influence on cooperative outcomes. We contribute to the theory building on how informal discourse intersects with formal mechanisms in shaping positive outcomes.

Game experiments are valuable for studying cooperation in natural resource use, but their utility depends on reflecting field outcomes (i.e., external validity). Researchers aim to enhance external validity by increasing the games’ resemblance to decisions made in the field (i.e., ecological validity). However, the effectiveness of this practice remains untested. We conducted an experiment with Chilean fishing communities known to differ in cooperation levels when managing coastal resources. We assessed how using a contextual frame and enabling peer enforcement to mirror field actions affected a common-pool resource game’s ability to replicate these differences. The contextual frame improved external validity by replicating field differences. While peer enforcement alone did not replicate these differences, its combination with a contextual frame revealed variations across communities in using punishment and sustaining cooperation. These results underscore the value of designing contextualized games to enhance our understanding of cooperation and effectively guide management and conservation.

Groundwater extraction remains a critical issue worldwide, with overexploitation threatening agricultural sustainability and water security. As policymakers seek ways to encourage more sustainable use of common-pool resources, the role of information has garnered significant attention in nudging individual behaviors toward cooperative outcomes. However, much of this scholarship has narrowly focused on stable state outcomes—particularly cooperative and non-cooperative behaviors—without fully recognizing that decision-making is a dynamic process where behavior exists on a continuum. It is equally important to understand how different information-based interventions can generate significant behavioral shifts toward normatively positive or optimal outcomes. Additionally, previous scholarship in behavioral economics and CPR studies has typically treated information as a homogeneous variable, focusing on whether its presence or absence influences behavior. However, not all forms of information are equal, and they do not influence behavior in the same way. This highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of different information types and their differential effects on behavior.

Our study seeks to address both these gaps through a controlled groundwater extraction experiment to investigate the relative effectiveness of distinct information treatments on individual extraction behavior. Specifically, we employ different types of information regarding the natural state (groundwater availability), the social state (extraction behaviors of other players), with varying levels of certainty and uncertainty. Our results will uncover which types of information prompt the most substantial shifts toward optimal groundwater extraction. These insights have significant implications for policy design and behavioral interventions in addressing the global challenge of groundwater over-extraction.

This study investigates the barriers and opportunities for implementing nature-based solutions to improve water quality in the United States, utilizing a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and an online survey with an embedded survey experiment. The triangulation of these methods provided a comprehensive understanding of stakeholder perspectives across various sectors, including water treatment plant managers, government officials, regulators, and landowners. Regulatory constraints were consistently identified as a primary barrier, highlighting the need for policy reforms to facilitate green infrastructure. Funding availability was another critical challenge, with stakeholders emphasizing the importance of new financing models and incentive-based programs. To analyze what interventions might be able to overcome these barriers, we designed a survey experiment, targeting two linchpin actors for nature-based solutions: State agency regulators and water treatment plant managers. Without their support, most analysts and practitioners agree that policy proposals nature-based solutions for water treatment will go nowhere.
The survey experiment randomly assigned two different versions of a statement to respondents, one representing the status quo (control) and another describing a scenario in which pre-permitting had been approved by the state legislature (treatment). In both scenarios described, a water treatment plant manager faces non-compliance with state standards for Nitrogen and Phosphorous pollutants, requiring a 30% reduction in annual pollutant load over five years. The key difference between treatment and control versions lies in the status of a state pilot program for nature-based solutions: in the first scenario, the program has been approved and the plant is invited to participate, while in the second, the program is still under consideration and not yet approved by the legislature. Both scenarios explore the likelihood of the manager joining the pilot program, which aims to address water quality issues through upstream interventions like regenerative farming and habitat restoration, as an alternative to traditional water treatment methods. We find that treatments for both targeted groups have a statistically significant effect on these actors’ intended adoption of nature-based solution programs in their respective roles as regulators and plant managers.

Urbanization is a pervasive global phenomenon that continues to significantly transform human-nature interactions, accelerate resource exploitation and pose challenges to effective resource governance. It leads to changes in institutions - or the set of rules and regulations that govern human behavior; fundamentally altering the ways in which people interact and engage in collective action for addressing resource management challenges. Understanding these shifts is crucial for managing the complexities of resource governance in rapidly urbanizing contexts. Behavioral experiments have been valuable in studying individual and collective action, providing deeper insights into the factors that shape social interaction patterns governing shared resource management. However, their potential to elucidate how macro-level phenomenon like urbanization may shape local-level resource governance dynamics is yet to be fully explored.

This study uses experimental data from the implementation of the groundwater game - a resource dilemma game that simulates the effects of individual and collective crop choices on groundwater management. The game was implemented in 300+ villages across 3 arid states in India, the largest user of groundwater in the world. The paper examines the effects of factors like proximity to towns and cities, along with access to road infrastructure and markets, and land holding on cooperation within the game. Results from preliminary analysis show that there is a significant negative relationship between urbanization and cooperation within the game. In other words, communities that are closer to urban centers had lower levels of cooperation for maintaining the shared resource when compared to communities farther away from urban areas. These findings suggest that as urbanization continues to accelerate, it is important to investigate its implications on human behavior, and collective action for addressing environmental challenges.

Resource governance problems are characterized by social dilemmas and complexity of the resource dynamics. Most experimental research on resource management focuses on the social dilemmas participants need to overcome to achieve cooperative outcomes. However, various studies suggest that the understanding of the dynamics of the system may play a role in the performance of groups. There is also evidence that people are more risk averse if uncertainty is caused by decisions of other people instead of uncertainty of nature.
In order to understand the role of resource complexity in more detail, we study the decision-making in a one-person dynamic resource game, varying different types of components of the resource complexity and removing the social dilemma component. Earlier work with single-person decision-making has focused on the understanding of systems dynamics, and the role of information. In this presentation we will present the results of a pre-registered experiment were we focus on additional aspects of resource complexity, that have been explored only in the context of social dilemmas: external shocks, risk of ending round, threshold impacting resource dynamics, and state of the resource. We also test the impact of uncertainty as risk, i.e. known probabilities of certain outcomes, and ambiguity, i.e. unknown probabilities of the outcomes.

The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are challenging the ability of communities and individuals to recover from such adverse events. Insurance is one way to protect against the financial losses associated with natural hazards. However, insurance policies are becoming less accessible in high-risk areas, impacting households’ ability to cope with natural hazards. These changes in the risk and insurance landscape raise questions about how to manage risk, who should bear the cost of increasing climate-related damages and what are perceptions of fairness when it comes to sharing the costs of risk exposure. We investigate fairness ideals in the contest of insurance choices through an experiment where participants decide whether to subsidize risk in insurance plans. We test whether unequal access to risk reduction investments influences willingness to share the cost of risk. Findings are based on an online behavioral experiment conducted with a U.S. representative sample.