- Fig. 1. Each phase of a typical public goods game. In phase 1, players each start with a personal pot of money. In phase 2, they decide how much of their own money to give to a group pot. In phase 3, the experimenter multiplies whatever was contributed; in this example, contributions are multiplied by 1.5. In phase 4, the multiplied money is divided evenly to every person. The tension of the game arises because the group as a whole does best if everyone contributes, yet individual people do best if they share in others’ contributions without contributing themselves.
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