PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Bowie, Aleah
AU  - Tan, Jingzhi
AU  - Zhou, Wen
AU  - White, Philip
AU  - Stoinski, Tara
AU  - Su, Yanjie
AU  - Hare, Brian
TI  - Extrinsic motivators drive children’s cooperation to conserve forests
AID  - 10.1101/2021.10.26.466023
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.10.26.466023
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/20/2021.10.26.466023.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/20/2021.10.26.466023.full
AB  - Forests are essential common-pool resources. It is increasingly critical to nurture a lifelong concern for forest health both locally and globally. Here, in two experiments, we demonstrate that school age children (6-18 yrs. old; N>1000;) of three nationalities (China, D. R. Congo and U.S.) do not have levels of intrinsic motivation to allow for successful cooperation in common-pool goods games requiring them to maintain a forest. We instead find that the size, timing, and certainty of receiving individual payoffs from cooperation significantly boost the odds of successful conservation efforts. We also provide evidence that the experience of playing this game increases longer term motivation to conserve forests. Results have implications for designing policy and curriculum to encourage collective action for forest conservation.One Sentence Summary Extrinsic motivation boosts concern for forests among children and adolescents in the United States, China, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.