Pro-Environmental Values Matter in Competitive but Not Cooperative Commons Dilemmas

The choice to conserve or be greedy in a commons dilemma may be influenced by the behavior of others and by pro-environmental values. Participants completed a measure of pro-environmental values one week before taking part in an Internet-based commons dilemma microworld consisting of a shared fishery with three computer-controlled virtual fishers whom participants believed to be real people. The three virtual fishers either behaved greedily (taking an unsustainable number of fish each season) or sustainably. In the sustainable scenario, virtual fishers left abundant numbers of fish for the participant and, thus, pro-environmental values were not related to harvesting decisions. However, in the greedy scenario, participants' pro-environmental values significantly predicted sustainable behavior, demonstrating that the influence of others' greediness may be overridden by pro-environmental values.