Apologies, Cheap Talk, and Silence: How People Think About Reputations in Public Goods Scenarios

ABSTRACT Objective Public goods are available to all regardless of whether they contribute to the goods. Because public goods do not exclude those who do not contribute, the danger is the good will not be provided. While many solutions to this dilemma focus on changing material incentives, there are also nonmaterial solutions such as communication. We ask if the type of communication from a group member with an established noncooperative reputation from one setting has an effect on the contribution levels of other group members in a new setting. Methods We posit that some communications are more convincing than others in promoting cooperation, and we conduct two experimental vignette studies to test this prediction. Results We find that apologies by those with negative reputations made no difference in the behavior of individuals interacting in four‐person groups, but they did make a difference in the behavior of individuals interacting in two‐person groups. Conclusion Our results contribute to the literature on social dilemmas and how decisions of group members are affected by the information they have about others. They demonstrate one potential way that negative reputations can be mitigated but suggest that this possibility is narrow in scope because it depends on the group's composition.