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Conflict and Coordination in the Provision of Public Goods: A Conceptual Analysis of Continuous and
Step-Level Games
Susanne Abele, Garold Stasser and Christopher Chartier
Pers Soc Psychol Rev 2010 14: 385 originally published online 2 June 2010
DOI: 10.1177/1088868310368535

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 Personality and Social Psychology Review

Conflict and Coordination in the 14(4) 385­–401

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Analysis of Continuous and DOI: 10.1177/1088868310368535

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Step-Level Games

Susanne Abele1, Garold Stasser1, and Christopher Chartier1

Abstract
Conflicts between individual and collective interests are ubiquitous in social life. Experimental studies have investigated the
resolution of such conflicts using public goods games with either continuous or step-level payoff functions. Game theory and
social interdependence theory identify consequential differences between these two types of games. Continuous function
games are prime examples of social dilemmas because they always contain a conflict between individual and collective interests,
whereas step-level games can be construed as social coordination games. Step-level games often provide opportunities for
coordinated solutions that benefit both the collective and the individuals. For this and other reasons, the authors conclude
that one cannot safely generalize results obtained from step-level to continuous-form games (or vice versa). Finally, the
authors identify specific characteristics of the payoff function in public goods games that conceptually mark the transition
from a pure dilemma to a coordination problem nested within a dilemma.

Keywords
Conflict, Coordination, Public Good Games, Interdependence Theory, Social Dilemma

The old man at the checkout desk in a local library shakes his
head in resignation. His arm rests wearily on the abraded
wooden counter, which is characteristic of the physical dis-
repair of the public library in a small town in the Midwest.
“No,” he whispers, “we do not have any books to lend that
came out after 2000.” A short drive to the north, the situation
at another local library presents a very different picture.
Community members are happily walking out of the library
building with the latest DVD releases, while young parents
are bringing their toddlers to an educative and enriching story
hour. How can one account for such a different situation in
two public libraries, located in adjacent communities? The
community members of each of the two towns have solved a
social dilemma in a very different way. But were they really
in the same situation to begin with? This article argues for a
closer look at the nature of interdependencies in situations
that are called social dilemmas.
Life often presents decisions between acting in one’s own
individual interests and acting to benefit an organization,
community, or society. Contributing time and money to sup-
port local causes such as libraries and parks is costly to the
individual, but if everyone decides it is too costly to contrib-
ute, no one gains the benefit of the public facilities and ser-
vices (Hardin, 1968).
Reconciling individuals’ interests with public interests is a
challenge for every society, and these challenges occur in
many domains of life. Hence, learning how people can be
enticed to forgo individual interests for collective interest is
useful for understanding social behavior and developing
social policy. We argue that a closer and more differentiated
look at the situation can foster the advancement of our under-
standing of cooperative and selfish behavior. Conflicts of
individual and collective interests are commonly studied
in psychology using experimental games. These games are
generically referred to as social dilemmas and include both
public goods games and resource dilemmas. Our analysis
focuses on public goods games.1 Experimental studies have
used two different classes of public goods games to study the
conflict between individual and collective interests: games
in which a public benefit increases as a continuous function
(usually linear) of individual contributions and ones that use a
step-level function that specifies a minimum level of contri-
butions that is sufficient to provide the public benefit. A litera-
ture search with the keywords public good and social dilemma
on PsycINFO revealed 87 articles published between 1974
and 2007 that used some version of a public goods game. Of
these 87 articles, about half (41) used a continuous-form
1
Miami University, Oxford, OH
Corresponding Author:
Susanne Abele, Miami University, Department of Psychology,
90 N. Patterson Avenue, Oxford, OH 45056
Email: abeles@muohio.edu

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386 Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(4)
game and half (46) used a step-level game (or a minimal con-
tributing set game, which is a form of a step-level game).
None of these research articles tried to replicate findings that
were obtained using one type of game with the other type.
Also, none of these research articles directly compared step-
level and continuous public goods games.2 In this article, we
point out why it is essential to consider the form of the func-
tion that defines the level of public benefit generated by indi-
vidual contributions. We offer suggestions for improving the
theoretical and ecological validity of psychological research
that addresses conflicts of individual and public interests. In
many reviews of the psychological literature on social dilem-
mas, the distinction between continuous and step-level public
goods either is not made (e.g., Liebrand, Messick, & Wilke,
1992) or, when mentioned, the review does not distinguish
which studies used which type of game (e.g., Komorita &
Parks, 1995, 1996). In contrast, reviews in other disciplines
include this distinction as an important consideration (see,
e.g., Kollock, 1998; Ledyard, 1995). We argue that the con-
ceptual differences between these games make generalizing
from one type of game to the other risky.
First, we outline the rationale of a public goods game
and explain the distinction between a continuous and a step-
level game. Second, we contrast continuous and step-level
games from two theoretical perspectives: game theory and
social interdependence theory. Third, we review several
areas of research that yield inconsistent findings depending
on the form of the game used. Finally, we present a concep-
tual framework that represents continuous and step-level
games as end points on a continuum. We suggest that the
region between these two types of games contains intrigu-
ing theoretical and applied questions that have not been
adequately explored.
Continuous and Step-Level
Public Goods Games
The Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game is familiar to most stu-
dents of psychology. Two people are interdependent, and
communication between the two is not possible. Both have
two options; they can either cooperate or defect. If they both
defect, their payoff is lower than if they both cooperate. How-
ever, both of them will get the highest payoff if they them-
selves defect while the other cooperates. The cooperator is
worst off in case her or his opponent defects. Hence, if both
cooperate, they both have an incentive to deviate from that
situation, which will result in mutual defection. Although PD
is based on a story that few of us (hopefully) will ever face,
the nature of the interdependency modeled is not that unusual.
For example, imagine two ex-lovers who both blame the
other for the failure of the relationship and cannot resist
recounting the many reasons the other is a bad mate. Both are
invited to a party with many of their mutual friends and
acquaintances. The cooperative move for them would be to
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stay away from the party. If only one of them goes to the
party, she or he will have the opportunity to tell her or his ver-
sion of the romantic split and gain the sympathy and support
of their friends. Going to the party would be the defecting
move. However, if both go to the party, the evening will be a
disaster and neither will gain any sympathy points. An impor-
tant element of both the ex-lovers’ dilemma and PD is that the
action of one person does directly affect the other person. If
one defects, the other suffers. If one of the ex-lovers goes to
the party, the other is faced with two bad outcomes: not go
and be reviled or go and ruin the party for everyone.
The PD game can be extended to more than two persons
with more than two decision options representing different
levels of cooperation. These are referred to as public goods
games or, often in the behavioral sciences, more generically
as social dilemmas. The underlying principle of the interde-
pendency for these games is the same as for the PD game:
There is a conflict between the collective interest and the
interests of each individual. The group as a whole fares best
when everyone contributes their resources to a public account
in a public goods game. However, regardless of others’ actions,
each individual is always better off keeping her or his
resources. Thus, the dilemma is between individual incen-
tives to defect and the collective incentive to avoid the bad
outcome of everyone defecting. Take, for instance, a com-
munity garden located in a city center park of a metropolitan
area. The maintenance of this community garden depends on
the citizens of the neighborhood. The users of the garden are
better off if all of them devote effort to the maintenance of
the garden. Each individual would be better off by avoiding
the cost of maintenance but coming to the garden, chatting
with the other users, and taking a share of the produce at
harvest time. If, however, all of the neighbors decided to
simply sit and chat instead of contributing to the upkeep of
the garden, no public good would be provided. The commu-
nity would not have any fresh produce to enjoy and the gar-
den itself not be a pleasant place to meet and socialize.
In the behavioral sciences, there are two dominant ways
of implementing a public goods game (see, e.g., Komorita &
Parks, 1996). In both versions, players are given an endow-
ment of X units and decide how much of the endowment to
contribute to the public good, Y (0 ≤ Y ≤ X). In a continuous
function version of a public goods game, each contribution
to the public account is multiplied by a factor of c and the
public pool is distributed equally among the players at the
end of the game. The size of c is set so that each player would
be better off keeping a unit of her or his endowment than
contributing it, regardless of the decisions of the other play-
ers. However, if all players keep their endowments, they are
worse off than if they had contributed all of their endow-
ments. This tension between contributing to the public good
and keeping one’s endowment also holds for decisions to
increase one’s contribution from Y to Y + 1 for all Y. That is,
a player’s payoff is always better when contributing Y than
Abele et al. 387
when contributing Y + 1, and thus the only stable solution
for such a game is for all players to contribute nothing.
To illustrate, suppose that three players are endowed with
10 resource units or points that have a value of $1 each. They
individually decide how many points to contribute to a pub-
lic account without knowing what the others decide. Points
not contributed are kept in each player’s private account and
retain their value of $1 each. Points contributed to the public
account earn a 50% bonus and, thus, have a value of $1.50.
The total value of the public good is distributed equally
among the three players at the end of the game.
Consider three possible outcomes of this game. The first
case is simple: Each player keeps the endowment of 10 points
and leaves with $10. Nothing is contributed to the public
account and nothing is gained from the public account. In the
second case, everyone contributes all of their points. As a
result, the private accounts contain nothing and the public
account contains 30 points, which is valued at $45. By every-
one contributing everything, each receives $15 (i.e., one
third of the value in the public account). Thus, everyone
fares better if they all contribute all of their points than if no
one contributes. In the third case, Players B and C each con-
tribute 10 points but Player A contributes nothing. In this
case the public account has 20 points and a value of $30.
Thus, Player A receives $10 for the points retained in her or
his private account but also gets $10 for her or his share of
the public account—$20 in total. In contrast, Players B and C
have nothing in their private accounts and receive only their
share of the public account—$10 each.
The dilemma resides in the fact that each player individu-
ally fares better by not contributing regardless of the others’
decisions. As the foregoing example illustrates, when Play-
ers B and C contribute all of their points, Player A does bet-
ter by contributing nothing ($20) than by contributing her or
his 10 points ($15). Indeed, Player A does better by contribut-
ing nothing regardless of what Players B and C do. However,
the other two players are faced with the same contingencies
and are likewise economically motivated to contribute noth-
ing. Returning to our community garden example, the dilemma
would be a continuous one if every hour worked or dollar
donated by a member of the community yielded more pro-
duce at the end of the season and a more pleasant community
garden. One could imagine such a situation, where the infra-
structure necessary for the garden (fencing, watering equip-
ment, benches, etc.) is already in place, perhaps from the
previous year, and every hour of watering, fertilizing, weed-
ing, and pruning increases the garden’s final value to the
neighborhood. However, if the value added by an hour of
work is slight, then sitting idly by waiting for others to work
is a tempting option to everyone in the community. How-
ever, if no one does the work, the garden falls into disrepair
and produces nothing. Everyone benefits from the efforts of
others, but the value added by any one person’s effort is not
sufficient to justify the effort.
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A step-level game contains a provision point that speci-
fies a level of contribution at which a fixed amount is added
to the public good. In the standard step-level game, the contri-
butions to the public account are lost if the total contribu-
tions fall short of the provision point. If the total contributions
exceed the provision point, excess contributions are treated
in one of two ways: Either nothing is gained by the excess
contributions or the value of the common pool increases by a
factor of c as in the continuous function game. When total
contributions are near or at the provision point, it is no longer
necessarily the case that a player is better off not contribut-
ing or reducing her or his contribution. If her or his contribu-
tion results in satisfying the provision point, she or he is
often better off contributing than not. If the sum of the play-
ers’ contributions is exactly the provision point, there is no
incentive for any one of them to reduce (or to increase) their
contribution.
In the standard step-level game, the provision point is
defined in terms of the total contributions from all players.
For example, suppose that three players were endowed with
10 points and each point in a player’s private account was
worth $1. As before, each could contribute from 0 to 10
points to the public account. However, in the step-level ver-
sion, any combination of contributions totaling 15 or more
points would create a public good worth $22.50. If this pro-
vision point were met or exceeded, each player would receive
$7.50 from the public good and $1 for each point that
remained in the individual account. If fewer than 15 points
were contributed, the public good would have no value, all
contributions would be lost, and players would receive only
$1 for each point that remained in the individual account. If
our hypothetical community garden does not return the same
value for every bit of work or money devoted by the citizens,
the situation can be quite different. Imagine, for example,
if the basic infrastructure of the garden is not yet in place and
the community is starting the project from scratch. There
would be some amount of resources and work required to
prepare the garden for planting or community use at all. The
garden may need a fence to protect the plants from encroach-
ing wildlife and the grounds cleared of rocks and weeds
before any vegetables or flowers can thrive. In this case,
there is a minimum amount of work needed to make the gar-
den a viable community resource. If one values the garden,
then providing the effort that makes the difference between
having no garden and having a garden can be both individu-
ally and collectively worthwhile. For example, if the commu-
nity were very near reaching the goal of building the fence,
contributing the remaining amount of time or money to com-
plete the fence could be a relatively attractive option to any
one community member.
A variant of the step-level game is the minimal contribut-
ing set game. In a minimal contributing set game, players
contribute either all or none of their endowment. The provi-
sion point is defined by the number of players who must
388 Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(4)
contribute to create value in the public account. Thus, the
minimal contributing set game is a special case of a step-
level game. We focus our comments on the step-level game
with the provision point defined by the sum of contributions.
However, our conclusions about the characteristics of step-
level games apply to minimal contributing set games as well,
and several of the studies that we review use minimal con-
tributing set games.
Although a step-level game and continuous function pub-
lic goods game are similar in many respects, they are differ-
ent in an important way. Namely, in a continuous game, an
individual is invariably better off if she or he contributes
less, as opposed to more. In a step-level game, this tempta-
tion to withhold or reduce contributions is not present when
the group has reached the provision point. A simple thought
experiment illustrates this difference. Suppose that in our
foregoing example, Player A expects or knows that the other
two players will contribute 5 points. This expectation in the
continuous function game does not change the fact that
Player A’s payoff will be higher by not contributing than by
contributing. In contrast, the implications regarding what she
or he should do to maximize her or his individual wealth are
different in the step-level version. Her or his contribution of
5 points plus the 10 points contributed by others will satisfy
the provision point of 15, and the public account will be
worth $22.50. Thus, her or his 5-point contribution will be
more than repaid by her or his $7.50 share of the public good.
Game Theory
From a game theoretic perspective (Von Neumann & Mor-
genstern, 1947), these examples are a long way of illustrating
two fundamental differences between continuous and step-
level public goods games (see Ledyard, 1995, for a more
detailed analysis). The first difference is that the continuous-
form game has one Nash equilibrium whereas the step-level
game has several.3 A Nash equilibrium is a theoretical con-
cept but has important implications for behavior in interde-
pendent decision making. Formally, a Nash equilibrium is a
solution or pattern of choices in which each person’s deci-
sion is the best response to the others’ decisions. As a result,
a Nash equilibrium, once it occurs, is a relatively stable solu-
tion because no one is motivated to change her or his choice.
Moreover, if players fully understand the game, are moti-
vated to maximize their individual outcomes, and assume
that others also fully understand and are so motivated, they
will play the Nash equilibrium, if one and only one such
equilibrium exists. From a dynamical systems perspective,
Nash equilibria tend to act as attractors in repeated games, in
that decisions tend to move toward a Nash equilibrium over
time, and once the Nash equilibrium is played there is a strong
resistance for anyone to change. In the continuous form of the
game, everyone contributing nothing is the only Nash equi-
librium. That is, contributing nothing is not only the best
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response to others’ contributing nothing but also each player’s
best response to any pattern of contributions by others.
In a step-level game, contributing nothing is not always a
player’s best response to the decisions of others. That is,
there are multiple Nash equilibria in a step-level game. In the
foregoing example of a step-level game, everyone contribut-
ing nothing is an equilibrium, but it is not the only one. Any
combination of contributions that sum to the provision point
is also a Nash equilibrium. Consider, for example, a case in
which Player A contributes 3 points, Player B contributes
5 points, and Player C contributes 7 points to reach a provi-
sion point of 15. In the aforementioned step-level game, no
player in this case would improve her or his economic out-
come if she or he were to respond differently given what the
other players contributed. Player C may think it is unfair that
she or he is contributing more than the others. Nonetheless,
she or he would receive a worse economic outcome if she or
he were to give less than 7 in light of what the others have
done. That is, her or his best economic response to the
Players A and B giving 3 and 5, respectively, is to give 7.
Another fundamental difference between step-level and
continuous-form games is related to the game theoretic con-
cept of Pareto efficiency. A pattern of decisions or a solution
to a game is Pareto efficient if no other solution exists that
improves at least one player’s outcome without adversely
affecting someone else’s outcome. In the continuous-form
game, everyone contributing everything is Pareto efficient
but the Nash equilibrium—everyone contributing nothing—
is not. Compared to everyone contributing nothing, there are
many solutions that improve outcomes for at least one player
while not adversely affecting others. One of these solutions
is, of course, for everyone to contribute their entire endow-
ment. Moreover, everyone contributing everything is the
solution that maximizes the collective outcome in the sense
that the group earns as much as possible. Thus, behaviorally,
Pareto efficient solutions are stable solutions if players are
motivated to avoid harm to others. Moreover, in the continuous-
form game, the motivation for the collective to earn as much
as possible is satisfied by the Pareto efficient solution.
In the step-level game that we described earlier, any solu-
tion that minimally satisfies the provision point is a Pareto
efficient solution. For example, in the case outlined above,
three players satisfy the provision point of 15 by contributing
3, 5, and 7 units. If any one of these players tried to improve
her or his individual outcome by contributing less, she or he
would succeed only if another player (or other players) com-
pensated by contributing more to obtain the public good.
This condition holds for any combination of decisions that
minimally satisfies the provision point.
To summarize, continuous-form and step-level games are
different in terms of two important game theoretic concepts.
In the continuous-form game, everyone contributing nothing
is a Nash equilibrium but everyone contributing everything is
Pareto efficient. In the step-level game, many patterns of
Abele et al. 389

decisions that minimally satisfy the provision point are both

Nash equilibria and Pareto efficient solutions. Consequently, H
F O
there is no dominant strategy for an individual in a step-level
game. That is, there is no strategy that would always make her 16 0
or him better off, regardless of what the others are choosing. F
10 0
W
Social Interdependence Theory 6 10
O
Kelley and Thibaut (1978), in their classic treatise of social 6 16
interdependence theory, distinguished three components of
interdependency in social relationships (also see Kelley et al., BOS
2003). They developed their analysis primarily in terms of
two-person interactions represented by 2 × 2 payoff matrices. Figure 1. The Battle of the Sexes game
An instructive example is the Battle of the Sexes (BOS) as Note: Values above the diagonal refer to the column player’s outcome;
represented in Figure 1. In the traditional presentation, a values below the diagonal refer to the row player’s outcome.
wife (W) and her husband (H) are deciding between going to
the opera (O) and a football game (F). Stereotypically, the B
wife prefers O whereas the husband prefers F. However, they X Y
also prefer to attend the same event together. Thus, the solu-
tions in which they do the same thing—(O, O) and (F, F)— 10 10
X
are favored over solutions in which they do different
0 10
things—(O, F) and (F, O). Nonetheless, W prefers (O, O) to A
(F, F) and H prefers (F, F) to (O, O). This example illustrates
0 0
two of Kelley and Thibaut’s components of interdependency. Y
First, each person has an individual preference that partly 0 10
determines the value of each solution for each party. Kelley
and Thibaut referred to this component as reflexive control
(RC). RC is the degree to which a person prefers one choice
independent of what others do. That is, the person’s decision Figure 2. A coordination game with pure mutual fate control
directly reflects value back to her or him. Second, each per-
son’s choice affects the values of the other’s choices. They
dubbed this latter dimension behavioral control (BC) because B
one person’s response changes the values associated with the C D
other person’s responses. In the BOS, there is mutual behav-
ioral control because each person’s decision affects the pay- 10 20
C
offs associated with the other’s possible decisions.
10 0
The third component in their analysis is fate control A
(FC). This component refers to the degree that one’s deci-
0 5
sion directly affects the outcomes of others. Pure mutual FC D
is illustrated in Figure 2. In this example A responding X 20 5
gives B a better outcome than if A responds Y. The FC is
mutual because B can likewise directly affect the outcomes PDG
of A. If B responds Y, A gets 10 points but B responding
X gives A nothing. Figure 3. The Prisoner’s Dilemma game
Kelley and Thibaut (1978) demonstrated that classic
interdependencies such as the BOS, PD, and chicken can be
represented as different mixes of RC, BC, and FC. For exam- affects the other’s outcome whether the other responds D
ple, consider the aforementioned PD as depicted in Figure 3. or C. Moreover, the FC component is noncorrespondent
Each person’s choice is typically labeled as cooperate (C) or relative to the RC. That is, by selecting the choice that is
defect (D). Although the BOS is a mix of RC and BC, the PD favored by the RC component, a player adversely affects the
is a mix of RC and FC. The RC component produces the other’s outcome.
condition that both players will fare better by defecting The BC component of a BOS is experienced as a coordina-
(D) regardless of what the other does. The FC component is tion game; it is mutually beneficial for the players to coordi-
because of the fact that by responding D, a player adversely nate their decisions by selecting the same activity. In contrast,

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390 Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(4)
the PD is experienced as a game of conflict; acting to improve
one’s own outcome adversely affects the other’s outcome.
Contrasting the continuous-form and step-level public
goods game according to Kelley and Thibaut’s (1978) theory
illustrates that the games are different in their basic compo-
nents of interdependence. The continuous-form game is a
mix of RC and FC with no BC. Each player prefers to con-
tribute less rather than more, and the adverse impact of con-
tributing one unit of her or his outcome is the same regardless
of what others do (RC). However, one player’s decision to
contribute a unit of resource benefits others by a specific
amount regardless of what they do (FC). Thus, the continuous-
form public goods game, such as the PD game, directly pits
RC (individual preference) against FC (the opportunity to
help or harm others).
The step-level game is a complex mix of RC and BC.
Every player, as in the continuous form of the game, prefers
to contribute less rather than more, other things being equal.
However, other things are not always equal in the step-level
game. The outcomes for different levels of contributions are
also affected by what others do; hence, the game is charac-
terized by BC. For example, in the game described earlier,
three players have to contribute 15 points to obtain a public
good worth $22.50, of which each player gets $7.50. Con-
trast two situations. First, suppose that two players contrib-
ute a total of 4 points. Then the third player’s best response
is to contribute nothing because any amount contributed, up
to and including the total endowment, would be lost. From
the perspective of the third player, there is no conflict in this
case because contributing nothing is the best response for
herself or himself and the group. Consider a second case: The
first two players contribute a total of 10 points. Now, the
third player is better off contributing 5 points than contribut-
ing any other amount including nothing. Contributing 5 yields
$12.50 for the 5 points left in her or his private account plus
her or his share of the public good, whereas contributing
nothing yields only the $10 in the private account. That is, the
outcomes for contributing nothing and contributing 5 points
depend on the decisions of the others. Notice also that there
is no conflict in this case between her or his interests and the
group’s interests. In sum, the others have BC over the third
player. By recasting this example from the points of view of
the other players, it is evident that the BC is mutual.
In the typical step-level game, one player cannot directly
affect the outcomes of others regardless of what the others
do. Thus, there is no pure FC. One’s decision to contribute a
unit of resource does not directly affect what others receive
regardless of what they do. Rather, it may change the payoffs
associated with the decisions that others make.
To summarize, interdependence theory represents a
continuous-form public goods game as a combination of
RC and FC. Moreover, the RC and FC are noncorrespon-
dent: Decisions that increase outcomes for the individual
(RC) adversely affect outcomes for others (FC). From this
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theoretical perspective, the continuous-form public goods
game is a close relative of the PD and is a game of conflict;
one player’s action to protect her or his outcomes adversely
affects others’ outcomes. The step-level game (as well as the
minimal contributing set game) is a combination of RC and
BC and, as such, is a close relative of the BOS.4 Thus, the
step-level public goods game, like the BOS, is functionally a
coordination game; everyone benefits if they can coordinate
their decisions to minimally satisfy the provision point
(Rapoport, 1987; Suleiman, Budescu, & Rapoport, 2001;
van Dijk & Wilke, 1995, 2000). Nevertheless, there is the
potential for conflict among individuals in how to solve the
coordination problem because some prefer one stable solu-
tion over another (as in BOS).
What Do the Data Show?
We have concluded that continuous and step-level public
goods games are different in important ways when viewed
from two prominent theoretical frameworks, game theory
and social interdependence theory. However, as noted before,
there are few studies that directly compare these different
forms of public goods games. Nonetheless, there are several
streams of research suggesting that different processes under-
lie people’s decisions regarding cooperation in the two types
of games.
Decision Timing
Consider, for instance, the timing effect in public goods
games. The timing effect refers to differences in behavior
depending on whether players are deciding simultaneously
or pseudo-sequentially. When deciding pseudo-sequentially,
players make their decision one after the other, but their
decisions are not revealed to the other player or players until
the game is over. Hence, the information set is the same in a
pseudo-sequential and a simultaneous procedure. In either
case, players do not know what others have decided when
they make their choice. Abele and Ehrhart (2005), using a
continuous public goods game, demonstrated that pseudo-
sequential, compared to simultaneous, deciders are more
likely to keep their endowments and less likely to recipro-
cate the level of contributions that they anticipate from
others. Interestingly, the order of deciding in the pseudo-
sequential, continuous game had no effect. That is, both first
and second deciders exhibited less cooperation than simulta-
neous deciders.
Effects of timing have also been observed in dilemmas
with provision points. Budescu, Suleiman, and Rapoport
(1995) and Budescu, Au, and Chen (1997) observed decisions
in a step-level resource dilemma with a pseudo-sequential
decision order.5 Their results were different from the ones
observed in the continuous game: Participants who decided
first requested more of the resource, and players’ requests
Abele et al. 391
decreased in the first three positions. Thus, the implications
of the positional order effect in step-level dilemmas are quite
different: They suggest that the timing cue is used as a coor-
dination device.
The nature of the decision timing effect obtained in the
continuous public good game can be understood in light of
the aspect that collective interests truly collide with the indi-
vidual interest in that game. As collective interests become
more salient and important, the likelihood of individuals
choosing the alternative that yields a higher outcome for the
group will increase. Moving simultaneously enhanced feel-
ings of groupness (Abele & Ehrhart, 2005), which in turn
might affect cooperation rates and the willingness to recipro-
cate, anticipated contributions. One explanation for the find-
ing that simultaneous movers construed themselves and their
partner more in relational terms compared to pseudo-sequential
movers is that an interdependency involving a pure conflict
of interests, such as the continuous public good game, may
inherently trigger the concept of social interaction, regard-
less of the timing of decisions. That is, conflict implies social
interdependence. Thus, the function of the timing cue is to
vary the balance of concern for common versus individual
interests.
However, the nature of the effect in the step-level dilemma
can be understood in light of the notion that the coordination
aspect is more prevalent than the conflictual aspect of the
interdependence. The situation can be construed as reaching
the provision point as the main goal. In a coordination game,
in which the actors primarily want to coordinate but second-
arily have different preferences on how to coordinate, the
actors search for whether one of them holds a position of
privilege. This position of privilege could be a status marker.
For example, being a man was probably perceived as having
more status than being a woman in the 1940s (hence the
focal point solution of “both going to the football game”
in BOS). The timing of unobserved moves could be a cue
for coordinating much like gender or other status markers.
Treating timing as a status marker would be consistent
with the findings of Budescu, Suleiman and Rapoport
(1995), and Budescu, Au and Chen (1997). They observed
that merely knowing the sequential timing of the decisions
without knowing the decisions produces behavior patterns
that are similar to those observed when earlier decisions are
known to later deciders. The one who gets to choose first is
entitled to a bigger share of the pie, even if decisions are
unobserved. Moreover, Cooper, DeJong, Forsythe, and Ross
(1993) also obtained results that are consistent with the treat-
ment of timing as a status marker. They had participants play
BOS in different timing orders, while not revealing the deci-
sion of the first mover until the second mover had made her
or his choice, and found that players were more likely to
coordinate on the option the first decider preferred. Hence,
the implications of the timing studies in a step-level
resource dilemma game parallel those obtained in BOS.
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Group Size
Another example in which games with a provision point
yielded different results than games without a provision
point is, as Weber, Kopelman, and Messick (2004) have also
noted, the effect of group size. Kerr (1989) showed that per-
ceived efficacy decreased with group size in a step-level
public goods game. Perceived efficacy refers to the per-
ceived criticality that group members ascribe to their own
contributions. More specifically, it refers to the subjective
probability that one’s contribution is necessary and suffi-
cient for the group to reach the provision point. In one exper-
iment, Kerr did indeed find that group size was per se related
to cooperation rates: He observed lower rates of contributing
as group size increased. Moreover, he found that perceived
criticality also decreased as a function of group size. In con-
trast, Isaac, Walker, and Williams (1994) found the opposite
effect of group size. They used a continuous public goods
game and found that groups of 40 and 100 provided the pub-
lic good more efficiently than groups of 4 and 10. Similarly,
Carpenter (2007) found that contributions to a public pool,
which grew as a linear function of members’ contributions,
were significantly higher in groups of 10 than in groups of 5.
Hence, when comparing the results of these studies, it could
be that group size is inversely related to cooperation rates in
step-level public goods games, whereas cooperation rates
increase with group size in continuous public goods games.
However, the studies also differed in other ways. Kerr
used a one-shot game whereas Isaac et al. included multi-
ple rounds in their experiments. Carpenter included a pun-
ishment option whereby other group members could monitor
and punish free riders. These differences prompt us to look
deeper at the explanations for group size effects in the two
types of games.
In addition to the hint that group size may have opposite
effects for the two types of games, the theoretical explana-
tions for the group size effects are different for the step-level
and continuous games. Moreover, these explanations do not
easily generalize from one type of game to the other. Isaac
et al. (1994) attributed the increased contribution at larger
group sizes in their continuous public goods games to a sig-
naling effect, meaning that a relatively high contribution in
one round should signal a willingness to contribute to other
players in succeeding rounds. If such signals prompted oth-
ers to reciprocate, one’s contribution at one point in time
would be recouped by inducing higher contributions by
others later. Moreover, for any given level of effectiveness
of such signals, the anticipated benefit of signaling should
increase as the number of people, whose subsequent contri-
butions can be influenced, increases. Hence, signaling can
explain the positive relationship between contributions and
group size in a multitrial, continuous-form game. Consider
this explanation for a multitrial, step-level game. Although it
is plausible that players in a step-level game could use play
392 Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(4)
on one round to influence the play of others on subsequent
rounds, presumably the goal of such signaling would be to
realize a coordinated solution for reaching but not exceeding
the provision point. Thus, increasing contributions with the
goal of influencing others to contribute more in subsequent
rounds makes sense only if the group has not reached the
provision point. Once the provision point is reached, contrib-
uting more in the hopes of inducing others to contribute
more is counterproductive. Thus, from a theoretical perspec-
tive, there is no reason to expect that group size would have
the same effect in multiround step-level and continuous-
form games.
Consider also the theoretical explanation for decreasing
rates of contributions as a function of group size in one-shot,
step-level games. The explanation for diminishing contribu-
tions when group size increased is that it becomes less likely
that a given player will be a pivotal contributor—a contributor
whose contribution is necessary for reaching the provision
point. This explanation of the perceived criticality of contribu-
tions can be applied to step-level games but not to continuous-
form games. Consequently, a dominant explanation for the
observed group size effects in step-level games does not gen-
eralize to continuous-form games. Thus, on both empirical
and theoretical grounds, there are reasons to expect that the
effect of group size would be different in step-level and con-
tinuous public goods games, whether the games are one shot
or repeated.
Communication
Communication as a means of increasing contributions has
been frequently studied, and it is typically concluded that
communication effects are robust (for reviews, see Ledyard,
1995; Weber et al., 2004). The explanations for the effects
are varied but fall into two general types: social utility and
social commitments. The social utility explanation is that
communication increases the utility of collective, compared
to individual, outcomes by increasing feelings of group identity
or by emphasizing social norms that reinforce cooperative
behavior. The social commitment explanation is that com-
munication affords the opportunity to make explicit or implicit
agreements that individuals later feel obligated to honor. For
example, Orbell, Van de Kragt, and Dawes (1988) have
shown that face-to-face communication increases coopera-
tion in continuous public goods games when everyone in the
group agrees to cooperate during the communication. They
concluded that unanimous agreements to cooperate could
either establish group identity (thereby increasing the social
utility of collective outcomes) or make the commitment
seem binding (i.e., a social commitment that should be hon-
ored). Similarly, Bouas and Komorita (1996) found an
increase in cooperation in a continuous game when partici-
pants had the opportunity to discuss the dilemma face to
face, the group experienced common fate, and participants
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perceived a high consensus favoring cooperation (also see
Dawes, McTavish, & Shaklee, 1977).
Although social utility and social commitment explana-
tions apply to both continuous and step-level games, a third
type of explanation, social coordination, fits only step-level
games. When there is the possibility of a coordinated solu-
tion, communication can facilitate the development of a strat-
egy for coordinating behavior (Ledyard, 1995). The social
coordination explanation rests on the idea that commitments
made in coordination agreements are reinforced by the struc-
ture of the step-level game. That is, once an effective coordi-
nation plan that exactly meets the provision point is realized,
no one’s outcome is improved by reneging on her or his
commitment. Put differently, if everybody is individually
better off if a job gets done and verbal agreements specify
who will do it, then it would be disadvantageous to everyone
if anyone reneged on her or his agreement. Van de Kragt,
Orbell, and Dawes (1983) introduced a form of step-level
games, the minimal contributing set game, to study the social
coordination function of communication. Indeed, all of their
groups who were allowed to communicate identified who
among their members would contribute to realize the public
benefit and those who were designated contributors always
contributed. Why? One could invoke the social utility and
social commitment explanations, but Van de Kragt and col-
leagues noted that, once a coordinated solution was identi-
fied (i.e., who would contribute), the structure of the game
served to enforce the commitments. Members of the desig-
nated minimal contributing set had better outcomes if they
contributed than if they did not.
Kerr and Kaufman-Gilliland (1994) and Kerr, Garst,
Lewandowski, and Harris (1997) also showed that face-to-
face communication increased contributions in a minimal
contributing set game. Kerr et al. (1997) concluded that play-
ers made commitments to cooperate in face-to-face commu-
nication and most felt obligated to honor these commitments
(even when it appeared to them that their compliance could
not be monitored). However, it is also the case that the par-
ticipants in both studies could have made coordination agree-
ments and reportedly did so in Kerr and Kaufman-Gilliland
(1994). The important distinction between coordination agree­
ments and social commitments is that coordination agreements
are reinforced by the interdependencies in step-level games,
whereas unconditional commitments to cooperate in contin-
uous public goods games are not.
Although communication is generally thought to increase
contributions, there are notable exceptions. Chen and Komorita
(1994) studied communication in the form of pledges to con-
tribute. Before each round of a five-person, continuous func-
tion public goods game, players sent each other a pledge, a
statement indicating the amount each intended to contribute
to the public good. When these pledges did not constrain
the subsequent decision to contribute, contributions were
lower than in a no-communication condition. Similarly,
Abele et al. 393
Wilson and Sell (1997) found that the communication
of nonbinding commitments decreased cooperation in a
continuous public goods game and that a considerable
portion of participants pledged higher than they contrib-
uted. These studies suggest that the communication of
nonbinding commitments can have adverse effects in con-
tinuous games, where there is always an incentive to con-
tribute less.
In recent studies, we directly compared communication
effects in continuous, step-level, and minimal contributing
set public goods games. The results support the conclusion
that nonbinding commitments in the absence of face-to-face
discussions have different effects for the two types of games.
Like Chen and Komorita (1994), Abele, Stasser, and Chartier
(2009) found that contributions declined over iterations of a
continuous function public goods game and that the com-
munication of nonbinding pledges accelerated this decline.
Moreover, participants pledged more than they gave, and
this discrepancy grew over interactions. In contrast and sim-
ilar to Kerr and Kaufman-Gilliland (1994). it was found that
nonbinding pledges increased cooperation rates in minimal
contributing set games. The direct comparison of discrep-
ancies between pledges and actual contributions in minimal
contributing set and continuous games is informative. As
already mentioned, this discrepancy grew larger over itera-
tions of the continuous game, and participants were contrib-
uting about 20% of the amount that they were pledging after
10 iterations of the game. As a result, they rated each other
as untrustworthy and unreliable on a postsession question-
naire. In the minimal contributing set game, the discrepancy
between pledges and contributions did not grow over time
and primarily occurred on trials when pledges exceeded the
number needed to gain the public benefit. Thus, pledges
were seemingly used as a coordination device in the mini-
mal contributing set game, but in the continuous game they
were used as an ineffective means of eliciting contributions
from others.
To summarize, communication increases cooperation in
step-level public goods games regardless of whether the com-
munication is face-to-face or binding. However, cooperation-
enhancing effects in continuous public goods games seem to
occur when communication is face to face or intentions to
cooperate are binding. Face-to-face communication is thought
to either induce high group identity, a sense of obligation to
honor commitments, or both. Our conclusion is that com-
munication can be a means of increasing the social utility of
collective outcomes and obtaining social commitment in
both types of games. Moreover, communication can function
as a social coordination tool in step-level games because
commitments to a coordinated solution are reinforced by the
payoff structure. In a continuous game, however, communi-
cation of nonbinding commitments can lead to deceptive
promises to cooperate, which creates mistrust and, ultimately,
low cooperation in repeated games.
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Social Motives
Social motives are an individual’s preferences for particular
distributions of her or his own and others’ outcomes. Rather
than assuming that individuals solely seek to maximize indi-
vidual monetary outcomes, individual psychological costs
and benefits are considered in the function of expected util-
ity. Similarly, Kelley and Thibaut (1978) described how
individual preferences can, in effect, transform the payoff
matrix of a game. In this way preferences add psychological
value to certain outcomes for certain individuals. An indi-
vidual with a strong preference for equality may prefer that
all players of a game leave with nothing over an outcome
where one player gains a lot whereas others including herself
or himself gain little. Although the latter outcome results in
a higher individual payoff for the player in question, the
value she or he places on equality in outcomes transforms
the payoff such that the former is a more desirable option.
Here we can see that individual differences in social motives,
or preferences for particular outcomes, can transform the
payoff function of the game, and with it the predicted behav-
ior of certain players.
Many social motives, commonly referred to as social
value orientations (SVOs), have been identified (Messick &
McClintock, 1968), but three orientations have received the
vast majority of attention in social dilemma research. Indi-
vidualists prefer to maximize personal outcomes, with no
regard for the outcomes of others. Competitors prefer to max-
imize relative personal gain, or the positive difference between
their own outcomes and those of others. Prosocials prefer to
both maximize joint or collective outcomes as well as mini-
mize differences between their outcomes and the outcomes
of others. The impact of SVO on social dilemma behavior is
widespread. Across a multitude of experimental games and
applied settings, prosocials have been found to behave more
cooperatively than individualists and competitors (van Lange
& Liebrand, 1991). In the laboratory, prosocials compared
to proselfs give more to others in coin exchange games
(McClintock & Liebrand, 1988) and harvest less of a com-
mon pool in resource dilemmas (Kramer, McClintock, &
Messick, 1986). Outside of the laboratory, prosocials com-
pared to proselfs sacrifice more in personal relationships
(van Lange, Agnew, Harinck, & Steemers, 1997) and donate
more money to charitable causes (van Lange, Bekkers, Schuyt,
& van Vugt, 2007).
How do these differences in social motives affect deci-
sion making in continuous versus step-level public goods
games? For simplicity we focus on two very common
social motives and their corresponding SVOs. Maximizing
one’s own outcomes is the most basic and a very common
social motive and is said to be pursued by individualists.
Maximizing joint outcomes or total gains in a group is also
a very common social motive and is said to be pursued by
prosocials. In a continuous game, these two motives are
394 Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(4)
consistently at odds. Regardless of what decision other
players make, own outcomes are maximized by contribut-
ing nothing. Conversely, joint outcomes will always be
maximized by contributing fully. This suggests that SVOs
should have a consistent impact on contribution levels in
continuous games. We found five studies that measured
SVOs prior to the playing of a continuous public goods game
(Chen & Bachrach, 2003; de Cremer, van Knippenberg,
van Dijk, & van Leeuwen, 2008; de Cremer & van Lange,
2001; de Cremer & van Vugt, 1999; Weber & Murnighan,
2008). Although these studies manipulated several other
variables, all found significant main effects of SVOs
on contributions to the public good. As expected, proso-
cials contributed more to continuous public goods than
did proselfs.
In a step-level game, on the other hand, these two motives
are not always at odds. In addition, neither motivation can be
pursued by the same decision across all levels of contribu-
tions by other players. Let us consider several different sce-
narios in our three person step-level game example and then
look at the decisions that would fulfill these two motives.
First, suppose that two players contribute at a very low level.
Because the provision point is unlikely to be reached in this
situation, both personal and collective outcomes would be
maximized by the third player contributing nothing. There-
fore, contributing nothing is the preferred choice of both an
individualist interested purely in her or his own outcome and
a prosocial interested purely in collective outcomes.
Alternatively, suppose that two players have contributed
at a moderate level. The third player’s contribution could
reach the provision point, but it would require a larger con-
tribution than would be returned to that player by the provi-
sion of the public good. In this situation, personal outcomes
would be maximized by contributing nothing, the preferred
choice of a pure individualist. A pure prosocial, on the other
hand, whose payoffs are transformed by a preference for
collective gain, is more likely to contribute the necessary
amount to reach the provision point, thus providing the pub-
lic good and maximizing joint outcomes.
Finally, suppose that two players have contributed at a
very high level and the provision point is already reached. In
this situation, any contribution by the third player would
reduce both personal and joint outcomes because excess con-
tributions to the public pool would be lost. One would expect
both a pure individualist and a pure prosocial to contribute
nothing to the public good.6 We can see that across these
three scenarios it is not always the case that pursuing per-
sonal outcomes and pursuing joint outcomes require differ-
ential behavior. In contrast, in a continuous game, individuals
pursuing these different social motives would be expected to
behave differently in all possible scenarios. For these rea-
sons, the effect of SVO on contributions should yield a
different pattern of results in step-level and continuous
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dilemmas, with effects being weaker and less consistent in
step-level games.
We found eight studies in six articles that measured SVOs
prior to the playing of a step-level public goods game (de
Cremer, 2002; de Cremer & van Dijk, 2002; de Cremer &
van Vugt, 1999; Offerman, Sonnemans, & Schram, 1996;
Parks, 1994; Stouten, de Cremer, & van Dijk, 2005). Again,
these studies manipulated many different variables, but we
focus on the main effects of SVO. Two of these studies
found no effect of SVO on contributions, whereas five of
them did find a significant main effect of SVO. The effect
sizes of these five studies were generally smaller than those
of the four continuous games discussed above. Offerman et al.
(1996) had participants play a 20-round game, finding a sig-
nificant main effect of SVO only in the first 5 rounds of play,
after which the effect was marginal. This weak effect of
SVO in the later rounds of an iterated step-level public goods
game may be because of changing expectations about the
contributions of others. Early in the game, one may not have
confident expectations about the contribution levels of others
and assume an average or moderate amount of contribution,
a situation that requires different decisions to maximize per-
sonal or joint outcomes. Once one has information with
which to form stronger expectations of others, however, a
player may find herself or himself in a scenario more similar
to the first or last example above, where cooperation has an
identical impact on both personal and joint outcomes. Inter-
estingly, de Cremer and van Vugt (1999) used a step-level
game in their second study and a continuous game in their
third study. This article offers an opportunity to directly
compare the size of the SVO effect across these game types.
In the continuous game they found that prosocials contrib-
uted more than proselfs with an effect size of D = .55 (Glass,
1976). In the step-level game they again found that proso-
cials contributed more than proselfs, but with a smaller effect
size of D = .31.
There is also other evidence that suggests that SVO
effects are more consistent in continuous social dilemmas
than step-level social dilemmas. In coin exchange games,
which are very close in structure to continuous public goods
games, SVO effects have been consistently found and appear
to be quite robust (de Cremer & van Lange, 2001; McClintock
& Liebrand, 1988; Smeesters, Warlop, van Avermaet,
Corneille, & Yzerbyt, 2003). Conversely, a series of recent
studies has shown that in step-level resource dilemmas, SVO
effects are found only when some form of experimental uncer-
tainty is introduced (de Kwaadsteniet, van Dijk, Wit, & de
Cremer, 2006; van Dijk, de Kwaadsteniet, & de Cremer,
2009). These studies suggest that when there is no uncertainty
and all players fully understand the structure of the step-level
game, groups coordinate on an equal division rule. When
uncertainty is introduced, however, decisions are instead gov-
erned by individual differences, such as social motives.
Abele et al. 395
Repeated Trials
Whether the interaction is ongoing or occurs once is another
important issue for the provision of public goods. Data sug-
gest that repetition of games over multiple trials has differen-
tial effects in continuous and step-level public goods games.
In continuous games, cooperation rates consistently decrease
over multiple rounds (Ledyard, 1995). This pattern, although
not universally reported, was shown by Isaac, Walker, and
Thomas (1984) and Andreoni (1988), among others. The
impact of repeated trials on contributions in step-level games
is much more mixed. For example, an increase in coopera-
tion over trials was reported by Bagnoli and McKee (1991),
whereas Suleiman and Rapoport (1992) reported a decrease
over trials. These mixed results may reflect the fact that if
contributions on early trials fail to meet the provision point in
a step-level game, they may either rise to the level of meeting
the provision point or drop to no contributions at all. In addi-
tion, in a step-level game, contributions that exceed the pro-
vision will likely drop on subsequent rounds.
The Transition From
Conflict to Coordination
Although most examples of step-level games in the literature
have one provision point, it is easy to conceive of a game
with multiple steps. Indeed, if one imagines a game with
many steps, it becomes barely distinguishable from a contin-
uous game (for an example, see Marwell & Ames, 1979).
Conversely, a continuous game as typically implemented
becomes a multiple step-level game because contributions
are represented as whole units of points or money. These
relationships suggest that it is not the mere presence of provi-
sion points (or steps in the function) that shifts a game of
conflict to a game with coordinated solutions. Figures 4 and 5
depict the relationship between the value of a public good and
contributions for a continuous public goods game and a step-
level game, respectively. Figure 4 depicts the function for the
continuous game described earlier. Zero contributions to the
public good correspond to a value of zero of the public good.
Starting from this origin, the function can be represented as
a series of small steps: A contribution of 1 unit increases
the value of the public good by 1.5 units, a contribution of
2 increases the value of the public good by 3, and so forth.
Because, as implemented, the amounts of contributions are
represented in discrete and not continuous units, this concep-
tually continuous game, in practice, consists of many small
steps. If it is not the existence of steps in the function (i.e.,
provision points), what is it that distinguishes a public goods
game that is inherently conflictual from one that presents the
opportunity for a stable, coordinated solution?
The distinction centers on the net return that a player
expects from a unit of contribution. If, at every location in
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45
42
39
Value of Public Good (Vp)
36
33
30 ΣY i
1.5
27
Vp
=
24
21
18
15
12
9
6
3
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Total Contributions ( ∑Yi)
Figure 4. Relationship between the value of the public good and
contributions for a continuous public goods game
the function, one incurs a net loss in outcome by contributing
a unit, then players are always tempted to contribute less
regardless of what others do. As a result, the game presents
conflict between individual and collective interests. In the
language of social interdependence theory, the interdepen-
dency is dominated by mutual FC and there is no BC. More
formally, let the value of the public good, Vp, be a continu-
ous increasing monotonic function, f, of the sum of the indi-
vidual contributions, Yi: Vp = f (S Yi), where the summation
is across r players. If an equal share of the public good is
allocated to each person (i.e., each player gets Vp/r, as is the
case in most experimental applications), the game presents a
conflict between individual and collective interests when the
rate of change in Vp is less than group size, r, for all values
of S Yi. For the typical experimental game, the function is
linear: Vp = cS Yi, c > 0. In this case, there is always a con-
flict between individual and collective interests if c < r.
When c < r, there is a dilemma because the player’s share of
the increment in the public good does not compensate for a
unit of contribution, and one is always tempted to contribute
less. If c ≥ r, there is no dilemma. If c = r, the individual is
indifferent between contributing one or more units of endow-
ment to the public pool and keeping them. If c > r, everyone
fares better by contributing.
Extending this logic to a step-level function, let d be the
increment in value of the public good at a provision point and
p be the total contributions necessary to satisfy the provision
point. If d > r, then no player is tempted to reduce her or his
contribution by one unit when the provision point is reached,
that is, when S Yi = p. However, d > r is a necessary but not
sufficient condition to ensure that a coordinated solution is
stable. It is also necessary to show that a solution exists that
does require any player to contribute more than d/r to reach
the provision point. As depicted by the dashed line in Figure 5,
396 Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(4)
45
42
39
36
33
Value of Public Good
30
27
.5
24 =1
S
21
18
15
12
d
9 6
6 3
3 p
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Total Contributions
Figure 5. Relationship between the value of the public good and
contributions for a step-level game
consider a linear function starting at the origin of (0, 0) and
continuing through the point (p, d). If the slope of this line, s,
is greater than 1 (s = d/p > 1), then at least one solution exists
that is an equilibrium if p can be equally divided among the
players. That is, if s > 1 and each player contributes p/r, then
each player’s compensation exceeds her or his contribution
because p/r is less than d/r. Even if players’ contributions are
not equal, any solution in which every player’s contribution
to reaching the provision point is less than d/r is a stable solu-
tion. In this case, the provision of the public good is not nec-
essarily a conflict between individual and collective interests;
it can be framed as a coordination problem.
Weber et al. (2004; also see van Dijk & Wilke, 1995,
2000) noted that people search for rules that guide decisions
in interdependent relationships. In the case of step-level pub-
lic goods games, a particularly compelling rule, suggested by
concepts such as equity and fairness, is to share equally the
cost of satisfying a provision point. A similar notion is sug-
gested by the concept of focal points in coordination (Mehta,
Starmer, & Sugden, 1994; Schelling, 1960). A focal point is
a salient solution to a coordination problem. The foregoing
analysis identifies another reason to favor equal divisions of
contributions in satisfying a provision point. If the provision
point in a step-level game permits a solution that is an equi-
librium, then an equal division will certainly be an equilib-
rium, whereas other distributions of contributions that satisfy
the provision point may not be. In the foregoing example
depicted in Figure 5, each of three players contributing 5 to
reach the provision point of 15 is an equilibrium: 5 is every-
one’s best response to the others’ contributing 5. However, if
Players A, B, and C contribute 3, 3, and 9, respectively, to
reach the provision point, Player C’s best response is not
9 but 0. Thus, this latter solution is not an equilibrium. Aside
from concepts of fairness and equity, equal divisions of con-
tributions are more likely to provide stable, coordinated
solutions to step-level games than unequal divisions, as long
as the public good is equally distributed.
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45
42
39
36
Value of Public Good
33
30
27
24
21
18
15
12
9
0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Total Contributions
Figure 6. Relationship between the value of the public good and
contributions for a game with two steps
It is informative to note that the superimposed line in
Figure 5 represents the same linear function as depicted in
Figure 4. Indeed, the provision point (p, d) is a point on the
continuous function in Figure 4. Thus, any solution that
reaches the provision point in a game that uses this step-level
function is also a solution for the continuous game that uses
the continuous function depicted in Figure 4. Although such
a solution may be an equilibrium in the step-level game, it is
not an equilibrium in the continuous version. Thus, refram-
ing a continuous game into a one-step game may create an
equilibrium. However, adding more steps may also destroy
an equilibrium. Figure 6 adds another step to the function by
defining a second provision point: If total contributions are 30,
the public good is valued at 45 and each of the players
receives 15 as a share of the public good. If this were the
only step, every player’s best response to the others’ contrib-
uting 10 would be to contribute 10 and there would be no
dilemma. However, the existence of the second provision
point at 15 provides an incentive for each to contribute less
than 10. That is, in this two-step game, if Players B and C
were to contribute 10, Player A would earn more by contrib-
uting nothing. B’s and C’s contributions would satisfy the
lower provision point, creating a public good of worth 22.5,
and A would get 17.5 (10 from the private account and 7.5
from the public account). Thus, in this two-step game, every-
one contributing her or his total endowment is Pareto opti-
mal but is not a Nash equilibrium.
How far can one push this approach to removing the
inherent conflict in a continuous public goods game? If
imposing one or two steps removes the inherent conflict in
the game depicted in Figure 4, do three, four, or more steps
also remove it? The answer centers on determining whether
equal-contribution solutions at each provision point are sta-
ble in the sense that each player’s contribution of a fair share
is the best response to the others’ contributions of fair shares.
In this game, r = 3 and c = 1.5. Consider imposing 10 equal-
sized steps. In this case, the amount of contributions, p, to go
Abele et al. 397
from one step to the next is 3, and the increment in the value
of the public good at each step, d, is 4.5 (i.e., d = 1.5 × 3 = 4.5).
Thus, each player’s fair share contribution to move from one
provision point to the next is 1, and each gains 1.5 as a share
of the public good (i.e., d/r = 1.5). However, by starting at
the highest provision point and stepping down to the next
lower, one can show that at every provision point, except the
lowest one, each player is tempted to defect from the equal
division solution. For example, suppose that each player
contributed 4 points of her or his 10-point endowment to
reach a provision point of 12. The public good would be
worth 18 in this case, and each would earn 6 from the points
remaining in the private account and 6 as the share of the
public good—12 points. However, each of the players’ best
response to the others contributing 4 would be to contrib-
ute either 1 or 0, either of which would lead to an outcome
of 13.5. In repetitions of such a game, the economic pressure
on each player would be to lower her or his contributions.
The only point at which this pressure would be removed is
when (if ever) they each contributed 1 to satisfy the lowest
provision point of 3. In this case, they would each earn 10.5,
which is slightly better than simply keeping their endow-
ment of 10.
Van de Kragt et al. (1983) claimed that the minimal con-
tributing set game is a structural means of removing the
inherent conflict between individual and collective interests
in public goods problems. We are concluding that step-
level games, more generally, provide a way of transforming
a continuous public goods game into a game that has a coor-
dinated, stable solution. Moreover, we have identified some
boundary conditions associated with the number of steps as
well as their location and size. To summarize, segmenting a
continuous public goods game into steps can provide the
opportunity for a stable, coordinated solution to a public
goods game. However, providing several steps is often
counterproductive because, with the existence of lower steps,
higher steps may no longer be equilibria. Nonetheless, as
we address in the next section, our analysis suggests a
strategy that practitioners of fund-raising often employ.
Although segmenting one iteration of a continuous game
into multiple steps may have limited value in promoting
contributions via coordinated solutions, decomposing it
temporally into a series of single-step games could be effec-
tive. For example, suppose that three players were given the
opportunity to contribute 1 point in each of 10 subgames,
with each subgame having a provision point of 3 yielding a
public good value of 4.5. Then the stable coordinated
solution to each subgame would be for each to contribute
1 point to reach the provision point. Once the three players
obtained the provision point, there would be no temptation
for them to defect on subsequent subgames. Thus, in this
manner, temporally segmenting a continuous game into
several single-step games could promote contributions to
the public good.
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Applied Implications
Behavioral scientists are often interested in using public
good problems to simulate dilemmas encountered in the
social world. In this endeavor, it is useful to incorporate fea-
tures of the real-world dilemma into the game. One question
is whether the naturally occurring examples of public good
and resource dilemmas more closely resemble continuous or
step-level games. Consider the often cited example of pro-
viding public broadcasting in the United States. Public radio
and public TV are public goods in the sense that no one is
excluded from listening or viewing. Moreover, public
broadcasting stations heavily rely on fund-raising drives to
provide this public good. Although one could conceive of a
provision point below which a station ceases to exist, the
salient contingency is that programming will be reduced or
expanded depending on the success of the fund-raising
drive. The economic temptation is to free ride on the contri-
butions of other listeners because the expected increment in
the quality or quantity of programming because of one’s $25
or $100 donation is not sufficient to offset the investment for
most listeners.
One applied goal of experimental research on dilemmas is
to learn how to reinforce behavior that is in the interest of the
collective in real-life dilemmas: in environmental issues and
in other cases where a public good needs to be provided or a
nonexcludable resource preserved. An example of this would
be the renovation of the public local library financed through
donations or the maintenance of recreational areas or public
day care centers. Real-world dilemmas are typically not dilem-
mas with an obvious or clearly defined provision point.
Interestingly, however, practitioners often reframe situations
so that they appear to have provision points, employing sev-
eral techniques to counter the individual’s assessment that
the return in public good is insufficient to justify a contribu-
tion. For example, fund-raisers for public broadcasting often
add other incentives such as gifts or publicity (announcing a
contributor’s name). More pertinent to our analysis, they
also create artificial steps in the payoff function and frame
the situation in a way that resembles a step-level game. Con-
sider, for example, announcements such as, “We need to
raise $1,000 within the next hour to support the current pro-
gram” or “We need to raise $500 in the next 10 minutes to
receive a matching grant of $1,000 from sponsor X.” Such
announcements reframe the larger continuous public goods
problem into a series of smaller step-level problems. They
do so in one or both of two ways. First, they suggest the pres-
ence of a step (e.g., saving the current program). Second,
they reduce the apparent size of p—the amount of contribu-
tions necessary to reach the step (e.g., “We need to get only
five $100 contributions to get the matching grant”). If a pub-
lic goods problem can be convincingly reframed as a series
of step-level problems, the psychological dynamics can
potentially shift from conflict to coordination.
398 Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(4)
Teamwork can also be conceptualized as a public good
game (Kerr, 1983). Teamwork, which is characterized by a
linear relationship between each team member’s effort and
the group product, is likely to invite free riders. But those
group tasks that require a specified input to achieve a group
reward should be less likely to induce free riding (Arnscheid,
Diehl, & Stroebe, 1997). As such, provision points can be
regarded as group goals, which have been shown to increase
group performance as long as they are specific (for an over-
view, see O’Leary-Kelly, Martocchio, & Frink, 1994).
Conclusions
Experimental implementations of public goods games come
in two varieties: continuous and step level. Conceptually,
they represent two distinctly different types of social interde-
pendency. Continuous public goods games pit individual
against collective interests and conform to two characteris-
tics often ascribed to social dilemmas: Each individual fares
better by contributing nothing to the creation of the public
good, regardless of how much others contribute, and every-
one fares better if they all contribute as much as possible
rather than if they all contribute nothing. In the terminology
of social interdependence theory, continuous public goods
games are a discordant mix of RC and mutual FC. In the
terminology of game theory, everyone contributing nothing
is the unique Nash equilibrium and everyone contributing as
much as possible is a Pareto efficient solution.7 By contrast,
a single, step-level game has several Nash equilibria: Any
combination of individual contributions that minimally sat-
isfy the provision point is a Nash equilibrium as long as no
one’s contribution exceeds the individual share of the public
good. Step-level games are a mix of RC and BC and can
afford mutually beneficial outcomes if players coordinate
their decisions. That is, single-step games can be framed as
coordination problems. Because of these differences, we offer
the following recommendations.
First, reviews of the literature should clearly distinguish
the form of the game and not generalize, either explicitly or
implicitly, findings from one type of game to the other. We
are not claiming that empirical findings never generalize, but
in the absence of data from both types of games, there are no
conceptual reasons to assume that they do.
Second, terminology should not blur the distinction
between the two types of the public goods games. Specifi-
cally, including both types under the category of social dilem-
mas blurs the distinction and is somewhat misleading when
applied to single-step games. Single-step games, along with
games such as BOS, are more aptly called social coordina-
tion games because they afford solutions that are mutually
beneficial to all players. This designation is not meant to
imply that such games never contain an element of conflict.
In BOS, the wife prefers the coordinated solution of both
going to the opera (O, O) whereas the husband prefers the
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coordinated solution of both going to the football game
(F, F). Nonetheless, they both prefer to coordinate success-
fully to attain either (O, O) or (F, F) over not coordinating;
thus, coordination is the dominant goal.
Third, and related to the first recommendation, more
research should directly contrast the two types of games. As
our selective review suggests, most comparisons between
the games are across studies. For example, we argued that
nonbinding communication may serve different functions
and affect decisions in different ways across the two types of
games. However, much of the empirical evidence is indirect
and rests on comparisons across studies that differ in several
ways. Few studies assessed communication effects across the
two types of public goods games in one experiment (excep-
tions are Abele et al., 2009; Bornstein, 1992).
Fourth, our analysis shows that continuous and single-
step games are different in important ways but one can blur
the distinction by segmenting a continuous function into steps
or adding steps to a single-step game. We identified charac-
teristics of the function that conceptually mark the transition
from a dilemma to a coordination problem. However, the
interesting and potentially useful questions are when the psy-
chological shifts occur and what the behavioral implications
are. For example, consider decomposing a continuous game
into two steps as illustrated in Figure 6. Each provision point
presents opportunities for coordinated solutions if consid-
ered separately. However, our analysis suggests that having
both provision points makes a solution that satisfies the
higher provision point unstable in the sense that it is not a
Nash equilibrium. Compared to solutions that satisfy the
lower provision point, one might expect that the solution that
satisfies the higher provision point would be less likely to
occur and less likely to prevail once it occurred in an iterated
version of this game. However, coordinating on the higher
provision point (i.e., everyone contributes all of their
endowment) collectively dominates every other solution (i.e.,
including those that satisfy the lower provision point). In
addition, allowing for the fact that players rarely fully ana-
lyze the contingencies, having multiple provision points
might disrupt attempts to coordinate on any one, resulting in
behavior in multiple-step games that resembles behavior in a
continuous game. These are empirical issues that have not
been addressed.
In sum, we make a plea for a much more careful consider-
ation of the conceptual nature of the interdependencies that
are modeled in experimental games. In pursuit of good meth-
odology, the choice of experimental games should be care-
fully scrutinized in light of the experimental objectives. If, for
example, the intent is to study conflict resolution, a continuous-
form public goods game is more appropriate than a step-level
game. This exercise is not a means to an end but should be
understood as a way to ensure cleanly designed experiments
and validly measured dependent variables. Thus, any research
reporting a study that uses an experimental game should
Abele et al. 399
include a justification for the form of the game, and reviews
of the literature should avoid generalizing results from one
form of a game to a superficially similar game when the under-
lying interdependencies are different.
Walter Mischel (1968) contended 40 years ago that
behavior is a function of the person and the situation. On one
hand, the person by situation framework has been used exten-
sively to study how different personalities react to situation.
On the other hand, the formulation underscores the impor-
tance of context in understanding social behavior. Social sci-
entists interested in conflict, cooperation, and coordination
should use the conceptual tools provided by social interde-
pendence theory and game theory for classifying the social
context in which behavior is embedded (Abele, in press;
Kelley et al., 2003). By neglecting or ignoring a comprehen-
sive representation of the interdependencies in the social
situation, we risk sacrificing our understanding of why peo-
ple behave differently in situations that superficially appear
to be similar.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect
to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
Financial Disclosure/Funding
The author(s) received the following financial support for the
research and/or authorship of this article: Preparation of this article
was partially supported by National Science Foundation Grant BCS
0744696 to the first author and by National Science Foundation
Grant SES 0603858 to the second author.
Notes
1. In a resource dilemma, a common resource pool exists for con-
sumption for a group. Resource units that have been harvested
by one group member are not available to another. Moreover,
resource dilemmas are often played over repeated trials, and
the resource is replenished at a rate that is proportional to
the remaining resource after each trial. It is also usually the
case that the resource can be exhausted, leaving nothing for
the players to harvest and no opportunity for the resource to
replenish. Hence, a modest consumption could be viewed as
the “cooperative move” but is not always in the best interest
for the group, depending on the level of the resource and the
replenishment rate. Consequently, the conclusions in this article
are conceptually and methodologically more pertinent to public
goods games than resource dilemma games. For a more detailed
analysis of resource dilemma games see, for example, Budescu,
Rapoport, and Suleiman (1995).
2. Bornstein (1992) proposed a game that models intergroup
conflict over continuous public goods and a game that models
intergroup conflict over step-level public goods (Rapoport &
Bornstein, 1987). He compared the effects of between- and
within-group communication in these two different team games,
which are more complex than the simple games.
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3. To be technically correct, what we call Nash equilibrium is
really a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies.
4. Similarly, Ledyard (1995) made the argument that the step-level
public goods game is more like the chicken game (another ver-
sion of a coordination game) than the prisoner’s dilemma.
5. The step-level resource dilemma can legitimately be viewed
as a take-some variant of the give-some step-level public good
game.
6. Note that the predictions were made for prosocials seeking to
maximize collective gains. For prosocials seeking to maximize
equality, the predictions would be identical in the first example
but reversed for the latter two.
7. See Note 3.
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Bios
Susanne Abele is a Research Scholar and Research Assistant Pro-
fessor at Miami University. Previously, she held positions at the
Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University Rotter-
dam (Netherlands), the University of Mannheim (Germany), and a
behavioral finance consultancy in Frankfurt (Germany). Her work
has appeared in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Journal of Experimental Psychology and Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes. Professional memberships include
Society of Experimental Social Psychology (Fellow), the European
Association of Social Psychology (Member), and the Society for
Judgment and Decision Making (Member). Her research interests
are coordination in social behavior, behavior in public good games,
social information processing in interdependent decision making,
and group performance and collective choice.
Garold Stasser is Professor of Psychology at Miami University.
His published work has appeared in Psychological Review, Review
of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Inquiry, Jour-
nal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology and Organizational Behavior and Human Deci-
sion Processes. He has served as an associate editor for Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin and Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology. Professional memberships include Association for
Psychological Science (charter member and Fellow), Society of
Experimental Social Psychology (Fellow), and the European Asso-
ciation of Social Psychology (Affiliate). His research interests are
communication in decision making groups, coordination of social
behavior, collective choice and problem solving and computational
models of social interaction.
Christopher Chartier is a graduate student in Psychology at
Miami University. His research interests include behavior in social
dilemmas and the effects of people’s social value orientation, more
specifically what motivations and preferences account for the pro-
social orientation.