Abstract:

Intergenerational dilemma refers to situations that involve conflicts between one’s self-interest in the present and the interest of others in the future, which are ubiquitous in any human society. How people make decisions in such situations can affect individuals, organizations, and even the welfare of all human beings. Different from traditional social dilemmas that reflect the conflicting interests between individuals and the group they belong to, intergenerational dilemmas involve “generations” across time and space, who are broadly defined as individuals or groups playing a specific role during a limited period. Moreover, intergenerational dilemmas are characterized by three unique features, namely power asymmetry (i.e., the behavior of the previous generation affects the interests of the next generation, but the behavior of the next generation does not affect the interests of the previous generation), lack of direct reciprocity (i.e., the next generation cannot directly reciprocate the cooperative behavior of the previous generation), and longer psychological distance (i.e., greater time lag, social distance, and uncertainty for the outcomes of future others). These features are the key reasons why the overall level of intergenerational cooperation tends to be low. To explore why people cooperate in intergenerational dilemmas, researchers often measure intergenerational cooperation using participants’ willingness to cooperate in hypothetical scenarios or observe their actual behavior in incentivized game tasks, both of which have their own advantages and limitations. Overall, previous research has suggested three main factors—personality traits, decision contexts, and social norms—that influence intergenerational cooperation. Based on these factors and two unique features of intergenerational dilemmas (i.e., lack of direct reciprocity and longer psychological distance), we propose four boosting or nudging intervention strategies to promote cooperative behavior in intergenerational dilemmas: (a) to cultivate gratitude and prosocial traits starting from early childhood, such as writing gratitude diaries and expressing gratitude to specific people, (b) to enhance the reputational effects of intergenerational cooperative behavior, such as increasing the publicity of individuals’ behaviors that have consequences for future generations, (c) to increase individuals’ affinity with future generations, such as asking them to record the potential future risks of climate change or write to future others, and (d) to decrease individuals’ perceived uncertainty about future outcomes, such as providing them with accurate value information about the behavioral consequences for carbon emissions and carbon reduction.
Notably, despite the accumulation of research on intergenerational dilemmas, there remains three major unanswered questions that are worthy of future research. First, future research should examine the ecological validity of extant research paradigms, particularly distinguishing the intergenerational cooperation measured by different paradigms and examining how they correlate with real-world intergenerational cooperation. Second, future research should investigate the roles of reputational cues in intergenerational dilemmas and explore the situations in which they promote intergenerational cooperation. Finally, in the context of global climate change, how to promote intergenerational cooperation and sustainable development is a common challenge faced by all countries in the world, but the conclusions drawn from a single cultural background cannot be directly applied to different cultural groups. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the cross-cultural differences in intergenerational cooperation and the sociocultural variables (e.g., individualism-collectivism, cultural tightness-looseness) that may explain these differences. Addressing these issues will provide useful insights for how to make policies that promote intergenerational cooperation more effectively.

Key words: intergenerational cooperation, prosocial trait, social norm, reputation, nudge