Supervisors: Erik Reimer Larsen & Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson
Discussants: Christian Elbæk & Lisa Faessler

Abstract
Collaborative organizations that rely on natural-resource commons often face tensions among actors who hold different beliefs about others’ willingness to cooperate, even when they share a common goal, such as the sustainability of the commons. Although beliefs can be challenging to change, these organizations can implement structural arrangements, such as information infrastructures, to influence actors’ beliefs. This study investigated how individuals update their beliefs about the extent to which other members of their community would cooperate over time within a hypothetical energy community. It evaluated responses under a two-condition, between-subjects experimental design in which participants were exposed to either aggregated feedback (i.e., information on individual electricity consumption and allocation, and the community’s total requested electricity) or disaggregated feedback (i.e., each individual’s requested and allocated electricity). We conducted two experiments (N = 403 participants) in Colombia: a laboratory experiment with university undergraduates and a lab-in-the-field experiment with residents from an island in the Caribbean. Experimental results revealed that in both contexts, participants who received disaggregated feedback exhibited stronger belief persistence in line with their prior beliefs than those who received aggregated feedback. Specifically, this disaggregated information result-ed in slower belief updating, suggesting that detailed information about others’ decisions rein-forces previous beliefs. Therefore, collaborative organizations should carefully design their in-formation infrastructures, as the feedback they provide can significantly shape beliefs about the consequences of cooperation.

Authors:  Alexandra Valencia Zapata, Erik Reimer Larsen, Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson, and Kyosuke Tanaka

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