Andrews Talbot M, Delton Andrew W, Kline Reuben
Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT USA.
Department of Political Science, College of Business, Center for Behavioral Political Economy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY USA.
Polit Behav. 2023;45(1):305-326. doi: 10.1007/s11109-021-09700-2. Epub 2021 Mar 19.
Disaster responses are political. But can citizens make useful disaster decisions? Potential obstacles are that such decisions are complex, involve public goods, and often affect other people. Theories of political decision-making disagree on whether these problems can be overcome. We used experimental economic games that simulate disaster to test whether people are willing and able to prevent disasters for others. Groups of players face a complex task in which options that might help vary in their riskiness. Importantly, although all options are reasonable, which option is most useful depends on the experimental condition. We find that players will pay to help, can identify which option is most useful across experimental conditions, and will pay to learn how best to help. Thus, players were able to make useful and costly decisions to prevent others from experiencing disaster. This suggests that, in at least some situations, citizens may be able to make good disaster decisions.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-021-09700-2.
灾难应对具有政治性。但公民能做出有益的灾难决策吗？潜在的障碍在于，此类决策复杂，涉及公共物品，且常常会影响他人。政治决策理论对于这些问题能否得到解决存在分歧。我们运用模拟灾难的实验性经济博弈来测试人们是否愿意并能够为他人预防灾难。玩家群体面临一项复杂任务，其中可能有帮助的选项在风险程度上各不相同。重要的是，尽管所有选项都合理，但哪个选项最有用取决于实验条件。我们发现，玩家愿意付费提供帮助，能够识别在不同实验条件下哪个选项最有用，并且愿意付费学习如何以最佳方式提供帮助。因此，玩家能够做出有益且代价高昂的决策来防止他人遭遇灾难。这表明，至少在某些情况下，公民或许能够做出良好的灾难决策。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s11109 - 021 - 09700 - 2获取的补充材料。
