Commons Dilemma

What is a Commons?

The word "commons" originally referred to land that was not owned by individuals but that was held in common by the whole community (Hardin, 1968). It has now come to be used in the sense of any set(s) of resources that a community recognizes as being accessible to any member of that community. The nature of commons is different in different communities, but they often include cultural resources and natural resources.

Some typical examples of commons are:

§ Fisheries – the fish in the ocean. Oceans are owned by no one and may be exploited by anyone.

§ National Forests – timber resources, recreation, conservation, etc.

§ The Atmosphere – clean air, etc.

§ Donor Supported Organizations – Requires “members” to donate to support an organization that everyone benefits from whether or not they donate (Public Radio, for example).

Some examples of commons in our work might include:

§ Common space – staff rooms, meeting areas, student lounges, gardens, play grounds, etc.

§ Common Work – projects that require interrelated teamwork and shared credit

§ Team Culture – A tone or set of “ways of being” that require everyone to contribute certain attitudes or behaviors to create and sustain a team’s unique “feel”

What is the Commons Dilemma?

The commons dilemma is the circumstance where there is a tension between the individually rational course of action (i.e. to be a free rider, to take more than your fair share, etc.) and the collectively rational course of action (everyone pitch in and contribute, everyone contributes what they can and takes only what they need, etc.)

The reason there is a dilemma is because the individually rational thing to do is ALWAYS to not contribute, regardless of what others in the commons do. This tension leads to the “tragedy of the commons,” where the collective resource is ultimately eroded due to increasing lack of cooperation from individuals (Axelrod, 1984; Kollock, 1998).

Example of the Tragedy of the Commons:

Let’s assume that the commons in question is a staff lounge. If everyone agrees to clean up after themselves and to occasionally sweep, vacuum, wipe tables, etc. (let’s say each person should clean for 15 minutes each week), the staff room will be a pleasant, comfortable place for all staff to relax and congregate. The collectively rational course of action is for everyone in the group to clean up after themselves and spend 15 minutes a week helping clean the space. How easy! A small price to pay for the payoff of a comfortable and pleasant lounge.

HOWEVER, from a coldly utilitarian perspective, the individually rational course of action is ALWAYS to withhold your contribution and cooperation:

§ If you do not contribute, but everyone else does, you get a great staff place AND you don’t have to do any work.

§ If you do not contribute and no one else does either, you weren’t the sucker who ended up cleaning up after everyone else while still not having a clean staff room

This circumstance is ripe for the tragedy of the commons. Perhaps 75% of the people start out doing their part… Pretty soon, a few of those folks realize they are doing more work than others and decide, well… I’m just going to clean up after myself. This leads to still more “defections.” Ultimately, the commons collapses, the staff room is a mess, and now it is not only no longer a relaxing and pleasant space, it is a source of considerable stress.

How do Groups Avoid the Tragedy of the Commons?

The way to avoid the tragedy of the commons is to change the payoffs (or the perception of the payoffs) so it is no longer “rational” to act in your own narrow self-interest. Not all types of commons lend themselves to all solutions, however, and the purpose and nature of a given commons must be considered carefully before designing remedies. Ways to change the payoff system, drawn from the research literature, include:

Motivational Solutions:

§ Shared Values: When people connect care for the commons to genuine care for each other, they value cooperation differently. Group norms simultanesously provide a set of expectations about how other group members are likely to behave and create an implicit threat that violations of norms will be responded to (if only through negative social pressure) (Messick & Brewer, 1980). Team building, relationship building, inter-connection, shared agreements (that people really care about) all change how individuals are motivated to action. In our example above, the 15 minutes of cleaning becomes a payoff beyond just “units of work,” it becomes an expression of caring for teammates. This is sometimes described as “teaching people to care about each other” (Axelrod, 1984; Kollock, 1998). When individuals place a higher value on behavior that serves the collective than they do on self-interest, the are much more likely to act cooperatively (Messick & Brewer, 1980).

§ Group Identity: Pride is a powerful motivator. The effects of group identity stem, many researchers argue, not from an altruism born of categorization, but from a belief in the interdependencies of group members and expectations of reciprocity among the members (Karp, D. et al., 1993). Returning to our example above, if the staff at this organization believe: “We have the best staff team in the county, and our staff room reflects how awesome we are… Have you seen the staff room at the county office? We kick their ass…” they are much more likely to care for their common resource. Suddenly the value of a clean staff room is no longer just a matter of a comfortable space to relax, it is an expression of the groups worth. This example implies a level of competitiveness, which can be a very powerful force. However, in-group bias can also be, for example, a sense of pride in the idea that “we are a model for others to look at and learn from,” or “we are a staff team that strives for excellence” or “I know my folks would do the same for me…” Group identity and inter-group competition can have such a powerful influence on cooperation that they can even compensate, at times, for a lack of communication. Members who identify as part of a group are consistently more likely to demonstrate cooperation and restraint in a commons (Kollock, 1998; Messick & Brewer, 1980).

§ Improve Communication/Transparency/Accountability: Communication has one of the most direct and robust impacts on the emergence of cooperation. Communication gives people the opportunity to make explicit agreements and commitments, allows groups to create their own sense of morality regarding cooperation, and reinforces the sense of group identity (Kollock, 1998). In our staff room example, communication allows a team to communicate the WHY of keeping the staff room clean (“Why does it matter to us to have a clean staff room?”), the moral reasoning and reinforcement of the group’s values (“Keeping the staff room clean is not just about having a relaxing place to be, it’s an expression of how we care for each other. It means a lot to me that we care for each other.” And “you are breaking your agreements to me and this group, and that is just not right.” ), and communication reinforces the group identity (“We are the best staff team in the county… What does this staff room say about us?”). Not surprisingly, miss communication that leads to miss understanding undermines cooperative behavior. However, this can be overcome when group members behave generously, initially responding to misunderstanding with more cooperation. This behavior tends to encourage others to increase their levels of cooperation (VanLange, Ouwerkerk, & Tazelaar, 2002). Why would someone respond to non-cooperation with increased cooperation? See Values above.

§ Trust: An individual may be concerned about the collective welfare but may only be willing to act cooperatively if others in the group do so also (Messick & Brewer, 1980). This requires either evidence that others are acting cooperatively OR it requires trust that others will act cooperatively. Trust is going to be based, primarily, on previous experiences with others in the collective, belief that non-cooperators are going to be sanctioned in some way,

§ Shadow of the Future: When the communication and transparency are clear, then the extent to which there will be future interactions also becomes important (Axelrod, 1984). For example, if it is the first day of school, I might be more motivated to do my share of the cleaning in the staff room, because I know I’m going to have to live with these collegues for the year. If, on the other hand, it’s the last day of school and I’m not returning next year, I might be inclined not to do my share. Why should I? I’m not going to be working with these people any more…

Strategic Solutions:

§ Reciprocity: For cooperation to emerge, participants in a commons must have an ongoing relationship, participants must be able to identify each other and their actions in the commons, have an understanding of people’s current and past performance, their must be a response to non-cooperative behavior (such as critical feedback), and cooperation must be rewarded (Axelrod, 1984; Kollock, 1998). In clinical situations, this means that actors must be able to reward cooperation with cooperation or punish “defectors” with defection (Axelrod, 1984).

§ Choice of Partners: When people enter into a commons by choice, and with people they have chosen, cooperation is more likely (Kollock, 1998). Furthermore, when participants in a commons can either withdraw without penalty or can expel partners who they do not choose to have in their group, cooperation becomes more likely. This remedy, however, is difficult in commons where it is impossible or impractical to limit access to the commons. In the staff room example, however, one could imagine a remedy where all staff have the option to “choose in” or “choose out” of the staff room group. Additionally, specific staff members could be excluded from use of the staff room, by agreement of the group, because the group does not choose to include that particular person (obviously this last example would be rife with complexities).

Structural Solutions:

§ Monitoring & Sanctioning: This is the most common way to protect the commons (Axelrod, 1984). Typically, monitoring can range from check lists, to quality audits, to video cameras, to policing. Sanctioning can include negative feedback, interpersonal isolation, passive aggression, fines or other penalties, or suspensions or expulsion from the commons. In the staff room example, this would require some way of defining the chores list, appointing someone to check the list, and some punishment (including, for example, negative peer responses, not being allowed to use the staff room for a period of time, or being required to do a thorough clean of the entire staff room) for those who do not complete their agreed chores. Monitoring and sanctioning is not a self-sustaining system. Remove the monitoring and the tragedy of the commons will likely ensue. People cooperate in this instance because they are compelled to, not because they particularly value cooperation. Schools and school culture are a terrific examples of a commons maintained by monitoring and sanctioning. Staff members police the halls to ensure the rules are kept. When supervision is absent, graffiti, theft, fights, etc. are relatively commonplace. Typically, the solution to these problems is to increase monitoring or the sanctions. At International Studies Academy High School in San Francisco, for example, they have installed video cameras. 90% of the school is being video taped at all times. The vice principal is delighted with results and reports that behavior incidents have decreased and rule breakers have been meaningfully sanctioned in all videoed areas. The staff is now busy trying to figure out how to deal with the bathrooms and the exterior walls, where there are not video cameras and where graffiti, litter, and cigarette butts have increased dramatically (M. Livingston, Personal Communications, February 29, 2008).

§ Rewards: Changing the pay off in the most obvious way, more personal or group reward, is a not uncommon way to resolve the commons dilemma. Group or individual bonuses, for example, are method of increasing the incentive for cooperation. In fact, there is research to suggest the cooperation increases the most when the benefit to OTHERS increases (Kollock, 1998). In the staff room example, this would look something like: if, as a team, we keep our staff room agreements for 3 months, the group will share a bonus (or we will have a team party, or individuals singled out by the team as going the extra mile will get a bonus, etc.)

§ Efficacy: A belief that cooperation may not make a difference is one of the core tensions in the commons dilemma. Members of a commons must perceive that their cooperation makes a difference (Kollock, 1998; Messick & Brewer, 1980). In the staff room example, one can imagine someone asking themselves, “Why should I clean up if the staff room is going to be a mess anyway?” OR, in another example, “Why should I contribute to public television if they are going to be just fine without me?” In the case of charities, this can be resolved by linking a contribution to a specific person (“Your contribution paid for the after school tutoring for Timmy for one year, attached please find a picture of Timmy and a thank you note.”). In the staff lounge example, it seems that tangible evidence that a) my contribution to cleaning up makes a difference, and leads to a generally clean staff area, and b) that if I stopped cleaning up, the cleanliness of the staff room would decrease .

§ Group Size: Numerous studies have found that cooperation declines as group size increases (e.g. Komorita & Lapworth 1982, Fox & Guyer 1977). This does not mean that large group size cooperation is impossible, and in fact large group’s may have some advantages (such as a reduced impact of individual Free Riders), but it does complicate things, and for many of the reasons stated above, such as complicating communication, making meaningfully shared values more difficult, or reducing individual actors sense of their own importance or impact on the commons (Kollock, 1998). If the staff lounge is shared by 15 staff members, for instances, we are have a very different conversation than if it is shared by 150 staff members.

§ Boundaries: Basically, creating boundaries is the equivalent of fencing the prairie, or privatize the commons (Kollock, 1998; Messick & Brewer, 1980). In the staff room example, instead of having a staff room, each person could have their own workspace, which they alone are responsible for. No more commons, no more commons dilemma.

Why Worry About the Commons?

One thing is certain, though: Cooperation in the commons must be proactively fostered. There are examples, to be sure, of instances where cooperation has emerged spontaneously. Intriguing examples can be found in places as diverse as evolutionary biology and trench warfare (Kollock, 1998). But far more often, the tragedy of the commons results. Undoubtedly, the staff room example will feel familiar to many readers. Practitioners must think carefully of what commons they are maintaining, and why.

The strategies for averting the tragedy of the commons described above are not intended to be a checklist for practitioners to follow. They come from clinical studies and mostly assume that self-interest is a primary motivator for all actors. Any value judgments about one strategy or another that crept into this knowledge brief (see Monitoring and Sanctioning, for example) are the result of this author’s bias, not the clinical trials.

Instead of following a specific prescription, practitioners need to think carefully about what kind of commons they are working with, and why protecting it may or may not be important.

§ When the Commons is Critical: In some cases the commons may be vital to protect. If we destroy the atmosphere, for example, we will all die. This calls for a combination of strategies that ENSURE the commons is protected. In the International Studies Academy High School example above, for example, the school was having a safety issue where gang members from the community were coming on campus and creating violent confrontations and distributing drugs. The staff urgently felt like the safety of the community had to be protected as a goal unto itself. Video cameras became a way to efficiently monitor the commons and quickly identify and sanction outsiders who were, in a sense, “free riding” on the safe gathering place that had been created for all students to access. For the staff of ISA, the ends (maintaining the commons of a safe campus) justified the means (intensive monitoring using video cameras).

§ When the Commons is a Metaphor: In other cases, though, the reasons for addressing issues of the commons may be more subtle. In the staff room example for instance, does the organizational leader want to create shared values and a group identity in order to have a clean staff lounge OR do they really want to use the staff lounge as a reason to have discussions about shared values and group identity? Viewed this way, the relative cleanliness of the staffroom becomes the means, not the ends. It is the learning experience as opposed to the desired outcome. If this is the case, perhaps monitoring and sanctioning, erecting boundaries, expelling people from the commons, etc. may not achieve the real aim. Continued dialogue about the group’s values and identity and why and how the staff room is a reflection of those, on the other hand, may have benefits far beyond a clean, relaxing area for the staff congregate.

References

Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. Washington DC: Harper Collins.

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(13).

Kollock, P. (1998). Social dilemmas: The anatomy of cooperation. Annual review of sociology, 24.

Messick, D., & Brewer, M. (1980). Solving Social Dilemmas. In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 1). Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

VanLange, P. A. M., Ouwerkerk, J. W., & Tazelaar, M. J. A. (2002). How to overcome the detrimental effects of noise in social interaction: The benefits of generosity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(5).

Karp, D., Jin, N. Yamagishi, T. & Shinotsuka, H. (1993). Raising the minimum in the minimal group paradigm. Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 32:231-40

Mueller, E. & Opp, K. (1986) Rational choice and rebellious collective action. American Political Science Review. Vol. 80.

Klandermans, B. (1986) Individual behavior in real life social dilemmas: A theory and some research results. In Experimental Social Dilemmas, H. Wilke, D Messick, C. Rutte (Eds). Frankfurt: Verlag Peter Lang

Komorita, S. & Lapworth, C. (1982) Cooperative choice among individuals versus groups in an n-person dilemma situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 42.

Fox, J. & Guyer, M. (1977) Group size and other’ strategy in an n-person game. Journal of Conflict Resolution. Vol. 21