Promotion of cooperative behavior in social dilemma situation - How group heuristics, restriction of short-term memory, and penalty promote cooperative behavior

The group identity effect in a social dilemma situation might be very important in order to attain cooperation. It is important for organizational managers to make efforts and take measures to enhance cooperative behaviors. First, it was explored how the group heuristics promotes a cooperative behavior in a social dilemma situation. The group heuristics was found to play an important role in a social dilemma situation, and enhance a cooperative behavior. Second, it was examined how the ability of short-term memory affected cooperation. The shorter memory span was found to lead to more frequent cooperative behaviors. An agent whose short-term memory was restricted tended to cooperate more frequently than that whose short-term memory is not restricted at all. In the third experiment, we focused on the effects of penalty and probability of the revelation of defection on the cooperation, and getting insight into how punishment strategy should be used to get rid of social dilemmas and enhance cooperation. The defection (uncooperative behavior) decreased when the penalty to the defection was heavy and the probability of the revelation of defection was low than when the penalty to the defection was light and the probability of the revelation of the defection was high.