Open access
Date
2022-09Type
- Journal Article
Abstract
Why do people often exhaust unregulated common (shared) natural resources but manage to preserve similar private resources? To answer this question, in this study we combine a neurobiological, economic and cognitive modeling approach. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging on 50 participants, we show that a sharp decrease of common and private resources is associated with deactivation of the ventral striatum, a brain region involved in the valuation of outcomes. Across individuals, when facing a common resource, ventral striatal activity is anticorrelated with resource preservation (less harvesting), whereas with private resources the opposite pattern is observed. This indicates that neural value signals distinctly modulate behavior in response to the depletion of common vs private resources. Computational modeling suggested that overharvesting of common resources was facilitated by the modulatory effect of social comparison on value signals. These results provide an explanation of people's tendency to over-exploit unregulated common natural resources. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000534660Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Social Cognitive and Affective NeuroscienceVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
Oxford University PressSubject
common goods; tragedy of the commons; social competition; ventral striatum; reinforcement learning; social comparisonMore
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