How Do Game Design, Gender, and Players’ Backgrounds Affect Behavior in Framed Field Experiments? Evidence from Community Forestry in India

Vista sencilla de ítem
dc.creatorZhang, Wei
dc.creatorMeinzen-Dick, Ruth S.
dc.creatorValappanandi, Sanoop
dc.creatorBalakrishna, Raksha
dc.creatorReddy, Hemalatha
dc.creatorJanssen, Marco A.
dc.creatorThomas, Liya
dc.creatorPriyadarshini, Pratiti
dc.creatorKandicuppa, Sandeep
dc.creatorChaturvedi, Rahul
dc.creatorGhate, Rucha
dc.date2022-12-20
dc.date2023-01-22T18:18:55Z
dc.date2023-01-22T18:18:55Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-27T15:40:27Z
dc.descriptionFramed field experiments (experimental games) are widely used to assess factors affecting cooperation in management of the commons. However, there is relatively little attention to how details of the games affect experimental results. This paper presents qualitative and quantitative results from a framed field experiment in which participants make decisions about extraction of a common-pool resource, a community forest. The experiment was conducted in 2017–2018 with 120 groups of resource users (split by gender) from 60 habitations in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. We test whether within-subject treatments (non-communication, communication, and optional election of institutional arrangements (rules)), remuneration methods, and design of the game board affect harvest behavior and groups’ tendency to cooperate. We also examine how characteristics of the community and players affect players’ choices in the game, with special attention to gender differences. Results reveal participants harvested substantially less than the Nash prediction even in the absence of communication, with men extracting less than women in both states. For male groups in both states, both communication and optional rule election were associated with lower group harvest per round, as compared to the reference non-communication game. For female groups in both states communication itself did not significantly slow resource depletion; but introduction of optional rule election did reduce harvest amounts. For both men and women in Andhra Pradesh and men in Rajasthan, incentivized payments to individual participants significantly lowered group harvest, relative to community flat payment, suggesting such payments stimulated deliberation among game players. Findings have methodological and practical implications for designing behavioral intervention programs to improve common-pool resource governance.
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/127782
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/111315
dc.languageen
dc.publisherUbiquity Press, Ltd.
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.134238
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.02.006
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08416-210338
dc.rightsOpen Access
dc.sourceZhang, Wei; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela; Valappanandi, Sanoop; Balakrishna, Raksha; Reddy, Hemalatha; Janssen, Marco A.; Thomas, Liya; et al. 2022. How do game design, gender, and players’ backgrounds affect behavior in framed field experiments? Evidence from community forestry in India. International Journal of the Commons 16(1): 341–359. http://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1179
dc.subjectgame theory
dc.subjectgender
dc.subjectcommunity forestry
dc.subjectforestry
dc.subjectframed field experiment
dc.subjectcapacity development
dc.subjectinstitutions
dc.subjectincentivized payment
dc.titleHow Do Game Design, Gender, and Players’ Backgrounds Affect Behavior in Framed Field Experiments? Evidence from Community Forestry in India
dc.typeJournal Article

Archivos

Colecciones

Instituto Internacional de Investigación sobre Políticas Alimentarias (IFPRI)