Date on Senior Honors Thesis

5-2026

Document Type

Senior Thesis

Degree Name

B.S.

Department

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Dr. Marci DeCaro

Committee Member

Dr. Daniel DeCaro

Committee Member

Dr. Julie Bunck

Author's Keywords

leadership; resource dilemma; social dilemma; learning; decision making

Abstract

Social dilemmas are ethical dilemmas that citizens, students and employees face every day. When faced with a social dilemma, an individual must work alone and along with others in a group. These situations create conflict between personal and group interests and can be easily mismanaged. Research has started to tackle the question of how we can teach people to best manage a social dilemma. The current exploratory study asks the same question with respect to leadership. Undergraduate students (N=20) played a social dilemma board game twice in groups of four, received a lesson on social dilemmas, and completed a posttest. During the second game, students communicated. This communication was coded to examine types of leadership. Results indicate that constitutionally focused leadership, which focuses on proposing goals, strategies, and norms, was associated with greater equity in sharing the resource. Our research is in line with the trend towards one leader’s presence positively impacting equity and the presence of two leaders negatively impacting equity. As more research with a larger sample is conducted, we can better understand the impact of leadership on equity and how to promote resource management.

Lay Summary

Social-ecological dilemmas occur when groups must balance individual self-interest with group interests when there are limited resources. However, the general population lacks critical understanding to manage these dilemmas, which contributes to inequality and ecological degradation. Prior research has used social-dilemma games to teach students and citizens about ecological and social aspects of social dilemmas. An important aspect of understanding was leadership and how it was used. Participants in the current study (N=160) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the Lesson-First condition (n=80), participants received a lesson in the form of an instructional video before playing the game twice. In the Explore-First condition (n=80), participants played the game before the lesson, then played again. Between game 1 and game 2 there was a five-minute communication period and a post-test was given after game 2. We recorded the conversations of each group during the communication period and game 2 to code for leadership. We found that the effectiveness of leadership varied, and that certain strategies and ways of regulating the group led to higher equity and scores on the post-test.

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