Public good games are becoming more prominent around the world, and specifically economic games are being utilized to measure human behaviour and non-human behaviour, respectively. The findings of these games have been used in discourses to ascertain that human beings are pro-social, and that by nature, people are exceptionally philanthropic. That is to mean it is innate in human beings to sacrifice their desires to make the other person happy readily. Conversely, during such games, human beings learn the tricks to bring out their selfish interests associated with personal payoffs. The authors of “Pro-social preferences do not explain human cooperation in public-goods games” brings out key concepts and themes related to human behaviour as follows;
Rational choice theory: the authors have shown that natural human being acts rationally. Any decision they make is based on logical judgement rather than social inclinations. People can work socially, but their decisions and choices are strongly pegged on rational judgements. That is why it is sometimes extremely hard to determine human behaviour based on their social inclinations.
Personal gain Increases social behaviour: Human beings by nature are selfish animals who usually look out at their benefits at the expense of another individual. When individuals learn that they will benefit from a particular activity, they put their energy, resources and time and even some go the extra mile to ensure that they achieve the economic benefit that is at the tail end of the social behaviour. More often, human beings tend to participate less in ventures where they are fully aware that the economic gain is less than the effort and resources that they are likely to put into the venture. The authors pointed out that human participation in the experiment continued to decline with an assurance that their efforts will not be compensated consummately with the actions that they put into the venture. It is a capitalistic tendency of some individuals that the more resources you invest into any venture should give an output that is higher than the input. If not, then it will make futile to engage into such an experience.
Human behaviour Automatically changes once they learn that their actions benefit the other person. Human beings do not like seeing their efforts helping other individuals while themselves are being “exploited’. Human beings work well and perform better if the intentions of their actions are concealed that they are acting in their own best interests but once they discover that their actions are being carried out to benefit other persons they automatically reduce on their production or altogether stop that kind of activity that they were engaged in. The authors demonstrate this kind of behaviour vividly by engaging participants to play in the ‘Black-box’ game. The participants did not understand that the game was benefiting other people, and as a result, the game went a notch higher, and every participant gave all that he/ she could provide best. However, once the black-box was eliminated, and participants were brought to the knowledge that their actions were going to benefit other people, their participation levels declined tremendously.
Social preferences are mostly anti-social more than pro-social: human nature dictates that social preferences are very personal and subjective. Any other form of social life should be left to individual discretion, and there are no acceptable parameters that make social life pro-social. The authors have established that many people in the experiments showed outward disgust for some social preferences from other people that tended to please them. Social choices are ant-social in the sense that whatever action that is preferred to one individual can be completely annoying to another individual hence erecting a barrier of social life.
Knowledge of the consequences of actions: human beings are predictive beings. The effects of their actions can easily determine Their actions. The human experience is the key foundation on which human character and actions are pegged. Individuals act premeditative of the outcome and the subsequent consequences of their actions. The authors had indicated that if participants knew before the consequences of their actions, they changed their commitment and inputs. For, example if the measures could lead to higher returns to individuals, their levels of activities increased, and at the same time, they put more resources since they were sure of their actions. However, if they realized that their efforts would lead to decreased payoffs, they could be reluctant to inject in more resources, or they could outrightly not participate. This is also true of their actions if it will benefit other people their level of commitment could naturally go down.
Experiment designs influence the level of the corporation. Human beings value to participate in experiments that have their interest taken care of. If the system of the investigation is developed to bring out personal biases and likes, then, without doubt, the level of cooperation will be highly hampered. Like mentioned earlier, human beings like concealing their intentions and deep-seated convictions in most cases and therefore, any experiment that is deemed to bring out these tendencies most likely will not see the light of the day. Social scientists currently are using covert investigations to show the level of pro-social preferences without directly engaging participants through obvious tools that they can detect.
The concept of Altruism is inherent in human beings. Though on the flip side, this concept is commonly used as a manipulative tool to gain confidence or favour from the other party for future benefits. Human beings can sacrifice their aspirations but on very rare occasions, especially if they are convinced that the sacrifices they are making will not directly benefit the other person. Otherwise, human beings are naturally inclined to receive benefits from others more than giving benefits. The authors have indicated to this fact time, and again that participation reduces with the knowledge that the other person is benefiting.
The concept of complexity of human nature: Human beings just any other structure is complex in form and matter. It is usually difficult to determine human behaviour. The authors have concluded that laboratory experiments have pointed at the null hypothesis, especially on the assumption of human beings as being pro-social compared to being anti-social. This is evidence that human beings cannot fully understand the power of public good-games.