Third-Party Cooperation: How Reducing Material Involvement Enhances Contributions to the Public Good

Decisions to cooperate are often delegated to a third party. we examined whether cooperation differs when decisions are made for a third party compared with ourselves and specified which motives are important for third-party cooperation. participants played multiple rounds of a public goods game (pgg). in study 1,we varied personal involvement from high to low; participants played for themselves (self),for themselves and a third party (shared),and solely for a third party (third party). participants contributed most when personal involvement was lowest (i.e.,third party) and least when personal involvement was high (i.e.,self). study 2 explored if social motives underlie third-party cooperation by comparing cooperation with social (human) and non-social (computer) group members. reducing personal involvement in the pgg (i.e.,third party) increased cooperation in social contexts compared with non-social contexts,indicating enhanced collective interest. increased cooperation for a third party may result from taking the other’s perspective,thereby increasing social norm preferences. © 2016,© 2016 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.