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It is commonly believed that improvements in social opportunities can paradoxically lead to a larger share of frustrated individuals. This paradox has been studied in the field of analytical sociology through a competition model proposed by Raymond Boudon. So far, analyses of the model suggest that the paradox indeed occurs, especially when opportunities improve from a low to medium level and acting on these opportunities carries relatively low costs. However, these analyses are based on the premise that actors care about their absolute payoffs and not their relative payoffs. We extend this premise such that actors care both about their absolute and relative payoffs, by incorporating a form of inequity aversion that we call relative deprivation aversion (RDA). Through game-theoretic analyses, we show that the paradoxical relationship is strongly attenuated when incorporating RDA. Using data from several experiments, we show also empirically that there is no significant increase in relative deprivation under improving opportunities. We conclude that the paradox is theoretically and empirically not likely in the situations captured in Boudon's competition model. We discuss the implications this has for the paradox in general and provide suggestions for situations under which the paradox may be more likely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partners resemble each other in health behaviors and outcomes such as alcohol use, smoking, physical activity, and obesity. While this is consistent with social contagion theory suggesting partner influence, it is notoriously difficult to establish causality because of assortative mating and contextual confounding. We offer a novel approach to studying social contagion in health in long-term partnerships by combining genetic data of both partners in married/cohabiting couples with longitudinal data on their health behaviors and outcomes. We examine the influence of the partner's genetic predisposition for three health outcomes and behaviors (BMI, smoking, and drinking) among married/cohabiting couples. We use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing with data on health outcomes and genotypes for both partners. Results show that changes over time in BMI, smoking, and drinking depend on the partner's genetic predispositions to these traits. These findings underline the importance of people's social surroundings for their health and highlight the potential of targeting health interventions at couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How people cooperate to provide public goods is an important scientific question and relates to many societal problems. Previous research studied how people cooperate in stable groups in repeated or one-time-only encounters. However, most real-world public good problems occur in groups with a gradually changing composition due to old members leaving and new members arriving. How group changes are related to cooperation in public good provision is not well understood. To address this issue, we analyze a dataset from an online public goods game comprising approximately 1.5 million contribution decisions made by about 135 thousand players in about 11.3 thousand groups with about 234 thousand changes in group composition. We find that changes in group composition negatively relate to cooperation. Our results suggest that this is related to individuals contributing less in the role of newcomers than in the role of incumbents. During the process of moving from newcomer status to incumbent status, individuals cooperate more and more in line with incumbents. Little is known about the dynamics of human cooperation in groups with changing compositions. Using data from a large-scale and long-term online public goods game, this study shows how group changes are associated with temporarily lower cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans compete for jobs, promotions, income, status, and many other scarce goods. In some situations, allocating scarce goods via competition is socially beneficial. In other situations, competition is not necessary to allocate goods, and nevertheless engaging in competition creates inefficiencies and welfare loss. We use an incentivized lab experiment to study whether people compete differently depending on whether allocating scarce goods via competition is socially wasteful or socially beneficial. We find that competition behavior is strikingly similar in situations where competing is socially wasteful and socially beneficial. Accordingly, there is large excess competition in situations of wasteful competition, creating considerable efficiency losses. We find evidence of a social trap involved in this excess competition. People are considerably more likely to compete if they believe others compete, and their beliefs on others' competition are similar in situations where competing is socially wasteful and socially beneficial. Interventions aimed at lowering beliefs on others' competition may be an effective method of lowering excess competition to prevent inefficiencies and welfare loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans compete for jobs, promotions, income, status, and many other scarce goods. In some situations, allocating scarce goods via competition is socially beneficial. In other situations, competition is not necessary to allocate goods, and nevertheless engaging in competition creates inefficiencies and welfare loss. We use an incentivized lab experiment to study whether people compete differently depending on whether allocating scarce goods via competition is socially wasteful or socially beneficial. We find that competition behavior is strikingly similar in situations where competing is socially wasteful and socially beneficial. Accordingly, there is large excess competition in situations of wasteful competition, creating considerable efficiency losses. We find evidence of a social trap involved in this excess competition. People are considerably more likely to compete if they believe others compete, and their beliefs on others' competition are similar in situations where competing is socially wasteful and socially beneficial. Interventions aimed at lowering beliefs on others' competition may be an effective method of lowering excess competition to prevent inefficiencies and welfare loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norms can promote human cooperation to provide public goods. Yet, the potential of norms to promote cooperation may be limited to homogeneous groups in which all members benefit equally from the public good. Individual heterogeneity in the benefits of public good provision is commonly conjectured to bring about normative disagreements that harm cooperation. However, the role of these normative disagreements remains unclear because they are rarely directly measured or manipulated. In a laboratory experiment, we first measure participants' views on the appropriate way to contribute to a public good with heterogeneous returns. We then use this information to sort people into groups that either agree or disagree on these views, thereby manipulating group-level disagreement on normative views. Participants subsequently make several incentivized contribution decisions in a public goods game with peer punishment. We find that although there are considerable disagreements about individual contribution levels in heterogeneous groups, these disagreements do not impede cooperation. While cooperation is maintained because low contributors are punished, participants do not use punishment to impose their normative views on others. The contribution levels at which groups cooperate strongly relate to the average normative views of these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]