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Long-term personal good

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(Redirected from Common good)

When individuals contemplate whether to remain part of a group or depart, they must evaluate the overall benefits of their membership. If their investment fails to yield satisfactory returns (negative ROI), they might choose to exit. Conversely, positive ROI over time typically encourages retention, barring the emergence of superior alternatives.

If the long-term returns from group membership pale in comparison to available alternatives, individuals are prone to opt for departure. Thus, to ensure the group's viability and prosperity for its members, the notion of "long-term personal good" must outweigh that of rival alternatives proposed by other groups.

This principle is especially pertinent in groups where adherence to collective decisions is obligatory. Otherwise, individuals might opt out of investing in the group's endeavors, seeking only to reap benefits from its return on investment. Consequently, non-investing members gain more from the group's actions, while investing ones profit less. This imbalance may prompt individuals to seek out more compliant groups, where they can reap greater rewards for their contributions.

People express less self-regarding preferences in games framed in social contexts than in games framed in market contexts[1]. The cooperative disposition of an agent is also connected with the question of whether the agent conceptualizes a given situation in terms of an “I”-frame of self-interest, or a “we”-frame ofcollective interest. [2][3]

Building democratic societies entails informing citizens of their rights and responsibilities. Citizens must know how they can actively engage in governance. They must have a platform to express their voice, hold the powerful to account and collectively determine the common good[4]

References

  1. Eiser, J. R., & Bhavnani, K.-K. (1974). The effect of situational meaning on the behaviour of subjects in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. European Journal of Social Psychology, 4(1), 93–97.
  2. Michael Bacharach, ‘‘We’ Equilib ria: A Variable Frame Theory of Cooperation’, Working paper, Institute of Economics and Statistics, University of Oxford, 1997
  3. Michael Bacharach and Michele Bernasconi, ‘The Variable Frame Theory of Focal Points: An Experimental Study’,Games and Economic Behavior, 19 (1997), 1-45.
  4. Rodny-Gumede, Y. (2015b). Marricana massacre: How South African journalism failed the test. The Conversation. 25 November 2015.