Mortality salience, consideration of future consequences and behavior in a commons dilemma

Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, Psychology: Academic Research, 2008When a resource is limited, it may be depleted by individual users acting in a rational, self interested way. The same resource might be sustained if the users act collectively so as to restrain their consumption for the common good. Such a resource situation constitutes a dilemma, a resource or commons dilemmas resulting from a conflict in self and community interests. Sometimes the dilemma is also viewed as a conflict between short term and long term interests. Examples of commons dilemmas are the harvesting of trees in the forest and fish in the oceans. Environmental influences such as exposure to mortality and individual difference variables such as consideration for the future consequences of one???s actions have been theorized to impact the amount of cooperative behavior (as opposed to self interested-behavior) in commons dilemmas. \ud It was hypothesized that mortality salience would increase consumption and donation behavior within commons dilemmas simultaneously. It was further hypothesized that cooperative behavior within a commons dilemma would be predicted by higher amounts of the construct of consideration for future consequences. Participants were assigned to either a mortality salience or control condition. They also completed a measure of consideration of future consequences, and participated in commons dilemma simulations. Death related constructs were more readily available for participants in the condition exposed to the mortality salience manipulation of watching a short news clip. Participants in this condition also consumed significantly more resources and donated significantly more money in commons dilemma situations. A measure of consideration for future consequences was found to be a useful tool in predicting donation behavior in a commons dilemma (under the control condition) but was not found to be effective in predicting the amount of consumption within a resource dilemma. \ud This research constitutes the first time a mortality salience manipulation has been found effective at Humboldt State as well as the first time mortality salience has been tested with multiple types of dilemmas simultaneously. Consideration of future consequences was also suggested as an individual difference impacting behavior within commons dilemma situations