Smiling contributions: Social control in a public goods game with network decline

Previous models of collective action assume that the network structure of individual relations that transmit social control mechanisms promoting or inhibiting collective action is given. An extended game-theoretical model that incorporates social control mechanisms as side payments and allows for endogenous network change is presented here. The model represents collective action as a public goods game and predicts that network clustering undermines mass public good production and the possibility of deleting ties leads towards equilibrium structures in which contributors and defectors are segregated. It is argued and elaborated how laboratory experiments with virtual social networks can be used to test these model predictions. An innovative experimental method is proposed, in which subjects are seated behind computers that are connected according to simple network structures. Subjects are informed about the decisions of their contacts and could send happy or sad smiley symbols to them, which are two possible operationalizations of social control mechanisms. In addition, subjects could delete existing links in reaction to collective action outcomes or to avoid unpleasant forms of social control. Results of a larger series of experimental tests are to follow.