Ideally, society would like to make recycling such a socially desirable behavior that it becomes a dominanty strategy, as it would be with the game shown to the right.

   This can be seen as the point of many public service commercials. Many socially desirable actions are not dominant strategies. Without passing a vast array of new laws the only other way to induce socially desirable behavior in these cases is to change the "feeling" associated with engaging in the "cooperative" or socially desirable behavior so that the sense of pride or satisfaction gained changes the payoffs.

Copyright © 1995-2004 OnLineTexts.com, Inc. - All Rights Reserved