Scarcity or abundance caused by people or the environment as determinants of behavior in the resource dilemma

Abstract

There is evidence that people respond differently to people-induced scarcities and abundances than to nature-induced ones. In a resource dilemma game, half of 72 subjects were confronted with a scarce remaining resource and the other half with an abundant one. Half of the subjects in each of these conditions learned that scarcity and abundance could be attributed to the members of their own group, while the other half believed that these circumstances were due to the environment. We found that subjects harvested more from the resource in abundance than in scarcity conditions. Furthermore, the difference in harvest size between scarcity and abundance conditions was greater in the environment condition than in the group condition. These results are contrasted to predictions derived from a rational economic analysis and a psychological model that accounts for the results is discussed.