A Social Dilemma Analysis of Commuting Preferences: The Roles of Social Value Orientation and Trust’

The current research advances a social dilemma analysis of commuting, examining the roles of preexisting personality differences in social value orientation (i.e., prosocial vs. proself orientation) and trust (i.e., a general belief in the honesty and cooperative inten-tions of others) in determining preferences for collectively desirable commuting op-tions: preferences for commuting by public transportation (Study 1) and carpooling (Study 2). Consistent with predictions, both studies revealed that, relative to prefer-ences of prosocials, preferences of proselfs were more strongly associated with beliefs about the relative efficiency of cars (i.e., an outcome affecting personal well-being). Also, greater preferences for collectively desirable actions were observed among proso-cials with high trust-relative to prosocials with low trust and proselfs with high or low trust-providing support for the claim that 2 conditions (i.e., prosocial goals and trust in others) must be met to obtain collectively desirable commuting preferences. One of the most critical problems of contemporary society derives from the unfortunate fact that many behaviors that tend to serve our personal well-being are detrimental to the environment. For example, environmental experts hav