Leiden University Student Repository

Ballon, Jennifer (2025)

Making Collective Lemonade Out of Productivity Uncertainty: Exploring Cooperation and Optimism Under Productivity Uncertainty

Master thesis | Psychology (MSc)

This study investigates productivity uncertainty, a type of environmental uncertainty prevalent in many real-life social dilemmas. As evident in the COVID-19 pandemic, cooperation does not always produce a productive outcome, therefore this study explored if optimism predicted an individual’s willingness to cooperate in situations which could produce either a productive or unproductive outcome. It was hypothesized that less optimistic individuals would be more impacted by productivity uncertainty and thus less cooperative in situations with rather than without productivity uncertainty. Participants first completed personality scales, including optimism and risk-taking preferences before participating in two Public Goods Games, where they were asked to anonymously contribute a portion of their endowment to a public good. The results demonstrated that productivity uncertainty undermined cooperation, but optimism did not influence contributive behaviours.

Cooperation, Productivity Uncertainty, Optimism, Risk

Author

Ballon, Jennifer

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Economic and Consumer Psychology

Supervisors

Welmer Molenmaker

ECTS Credits

20 EC

Language

en