Social Value Orientation and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: The Effects of Regulatory Focus and Descriptive Norms

Social dilemmas (SDs) refer to situations where self and collective interests conflict. This study aims to contribute to an important question in the SD literature: "what are the factors that lead individuals to protect the collective interests (to cooperate) in SDs?". Based on the regulatory focus theory, the focus theory of normative conduct, and the literature on social value orientation (SVO), it was hypothesized that SVO would interact with regulatory focus and descriptive norms to influence cooperation in a SD. Using a prisoner's dilemma game (PDG), hypotheses were tested on 289 participants from a public university. SVO was measured three weeks prior to the PDG, while regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) and descriptive norms (control vs. self-interest vs. cooperation) were manipulated during the experiment. Compared with promotion focus, prevention focus activation was observed to lead to lower cooperation among prosocial men. Moreover, prosocials had higher cooperation when descriptive norms signaled cooperative behavior rather than selfish behavior. SVO x regulatory focus x descriptive norms interaction was insignificant. These findings suggest that individuals with prosocial, but not with proself motivation, are influenced by these situational factors. Thus, policymakers should consider these factors to ensure the high cooperation of prosocial individuals. Integrating regulatory focus theory, focus theory of normative conduct, and the literature on SVO, this study makes a unique contribution to the literature as it attempts to enhance the understanding of the preferences of individuals in SDs. Furthermore, this study provides a practical contribution by testing a theoretical model that can at least partially explain the low cooperative behavior in SD situations in Turkey.