The Impact of Team Identity and Gender on Free-Riding Responses to Fear and Cooperation Sustainability

This study explores the interaction effect of team identity and gender on free-riding responses to fear and cooperation sustainability in a social dilemma situation. Based on differences in inequity aversion, risk preferences, and reaction to competition between men and women, we predict that team identity reduces free-riding behaviors among men when they feel fear to be exploited by others teammates that free-ride, but that it does not affect women in this way. Consequently, we also predict that the effect of team identity on cooperation sustainability differs between the two genders. We conducted an experiment in which dominant incentives to free-ride were held constant over 30 periods and where agents had to make a decision between cooperation and free-riding in each period. After each decision, agents received teammates’ contribution and earnings, which facilitates that agents identify whether their team members free-ride. Our findings show no effect for team identity on free-riding response to fear among women. However, team identity affects free-riding response to fear among men, which positively impacts cooperation sustainability.