Cooperative Research Incentives: Lessons Learned Using Students as Experimental Subjects

Abstract

This paper reviews two experiments in which student volunteers were employed for research on cooperative and competitive behaviors. In both experiments the students were given the opportunity to earn incentive pay; the independent variable was the offering of incentives on either a competitive or cooperative basis. The researchers expected the incentives to influence the students' behaviors but found that some behaviors contradicted the expectations, particularly for the cooperative treatments. In both experiments, limited cooperation occurred despite the incentives offered. This paper presents a brief literature review, the experimental methods, incentives used, and instructions given to the subjects. It then reviews the behaviors observed and summarizes lessons learned to assist other researchers that want to minimize problems and increase validity when conducting research experiments where cooperation is expected or encouraged.