Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic

Evolutionary game theory and public goods games offer an important framework to understand cooperation during pandemics. From this perspective, the COVID-19 situation can be conceptualized as a dilemma where people who neglect safety precautions act as free riders, because they get to enjoy the bene...

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Main Authors: YONG, Jose C., CHOY, Bryan K. C.
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3315
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4572/viewcontent/fpsyg_12_646892.pdf
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spelling sg-smu-ink.soss_research-45722021-07-01T08:33:31Z Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic YONG, Jose C. CHOY, Bryan K. C. Evolutionary game theory and public goods games offer an important framework to understand cooperation during pandemics. From this perspective, the COVID-19 situation can be conceptualized as a dilemma where people who neglect safety precautions act as free riders, because they get to enjoy the benefits of decreased health risk from others' compliance with policies despite not contributing to or even undermining public safety themselves. At the same time, humans appear to carry a suite of evolved psychological mechanisms aimed at curbing free riding in order to ensure the continued provision of public goods, which can be leveraged to develop more effective measures to promote compliance with regulations. We also highlight factors beyond free riding that reduce compliance rates, such as the emergence of conspiratorial thinking, which seriously undermine the effectiveness of measures to suppress free riding. Together, the current paper outlines the social dynamics that occur in public goods dilemmas involving the spread of infectious disease, highlights the utility and limits of evolutionary game-theoretic approaches for COVID-19 management, and suggests novel directions based on emerging challenges to cooperation. 2021-03-01T08:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3315 info:doi/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646892 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4572/viewcontent/fpsyg_12_646892.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Research Collection School of Social Sciences eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University evolutionary game theory decision-making COVID-19 free riding evolutionary psychology cooperation public goods public goods dilemma pandemics Applied Behavior Analysis Social Psychology
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic evolutionary game theory
decision-making
COVID-19
free riding
evolutionary psychology
cooperation
public goods
public goods dilemma
pandemics
Applied Behavior Analysis
Social Psychology
spellingShingle evolutionary game theory
decision-making
COVID-19
free riding
evolutionary psychology
cooperation
public goods
public goods dilemma
pandemics
Applied Behavior Analysis
Social Psychology
YONG, Jose C.
CHOY, Bryan K. C.
Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic
description Evolutionary game theory and public goods games offer an important framework to understand cooperation during pandemics. From this perspective, the COVID-19 situation can be conceptualized as a dilemma where people who neglect safety precautions act as free riders, because they get to enjoy the benefits of decreased health risk from others' compliance with policies despite not contributing to or even undermining public safety themselves. At the same time, humans appear to carry a suite of evolved psychological mechanisms aimed at curbing free riding in order to ensure the continued provision of public goods, which can be leveraged to develop more effective measures to promote compliance with regulations. We also highlight factors beyond free riding that reduce compliance rates, such as the emergence of conspiratorial thinking, which seriously undermine the effectiveness of measures to suppress free riding. Together, the current paper outlines the social dynamics that occur in public goods dilemmas involving the spread of infectious disease, highlights the utility and limits of evolutionary game-theoretic approaches for COVID-19 management, and suggests novel directions based on emerging challenges to cooperation.
format text
author YONG, Jose C.
CHOY, Bryan K. C.
author_facet YONG, Jose C.
CHOY, Bryan K. C.
author_sort YONG, Jose C.
title Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort noncompliance with safety guidelines as a free-riding strategy: an evolutionary game-theoretic approach to cooperation during the covid-19 pandemic
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2021
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3315
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4572/viewcontent/fpsyg_12_646892.pdf
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