Welcome to our website on social dilemmas! Our aim is to inform the public about social dilemmas, and to provide an opportunity for social dilemma researchers to meet, discuss and develop new research.

What are social dilemmas?

Social dilemmas are situations in which self-interest is at odds with collective interests. Economic crisis versus welfare, environmental risks versus opportunities, peace versus friction between nations, separation versus happy relationships.  Are people good or bad?  What are the basics of trust, fairness, or human cooperation?  And ultimately, how can people be promoted to act in ways that serve all of us, now and in the future?  These topics and questions are at the heart of theory and research on social dilemmas.

Want to know more about social dilemmas? Then please check this page. Please also check out our news section for information about new books, recent conferences and the next conference.

For a classic review article on social dilemma research, see:

Dawes, R. M. (1980). Social dilemmas. Annual Review of Psychology, 31, 169-193.

For more recent review articles, see:

Van Lange, P. A. M. Joireman, J., Parks, C. D., & Van Dijk, E. (2013).  The psychology of social dilemmas:  A review.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 120, 125-141.

Van Dijk, E., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2021). Experimental Games and Social Decision Making. Annual Review of Psychology, 72, 415-428.

Thielmann, I., Böhm, R., Ott, M., & Hilbig, B. E. (2021). Economic games: An introduction and guide for research. Collabra: Psychology, 7(1), 19004. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.19004

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