Three essays on group dynamics, other-regarding preferences and cooperation

This thesis addresses dynamics of other-regarding preferences emerging in informal contexts, where clear commitments among individuals are not possible. The first paper tests experimentally if groups remain more self interested than individuals when consuming a renewable resource, building on the empirical evidence on the bystander effect. The other two papers build on two different ideas of similarity to address whether perceived similarity can be a driver of trust or cooperation. An experimental analysis introduces partner selection in a trust game to check whether other-regarding preferences in informal environments benefit from this feature, while at the same time controlling for similarity as a driver of increased trust, following on the literature of minimal group paradigm and in-group out-group bias. In the third paper similarity is shown to be a successful driver of increased cooperation in a simulation environment, when individuals may freely join and leave informal groups.