Social Dilemmas and Biodiversity

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INTRODUCTION

This teaching guide is meant to seamlessly fit into existing lesson plans in Psychology courses. The guide is created for teachers and professors interested in including environmental issues as examples for their students to understand the concepts in their introductory courses. This particular guide uses the topic of biodiversity loss to aid students in understanding social dilemmas. It also hopes to create an understanding of the vital role psychology can play in the creation of a sustainable future for our planet.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students can explain what social dilemmas are, and the concept of common dillemas
Students can relate social dilemmas, and specifically common dillemas, to biodiversity loss

SOCIAL DILEMMAS

Social dilemmas is a concept in psychology that refers to situations where there is a conflict between immediate self-interest and longer-term collective interests. These are challenging situations because acting in one’s immediate self-interest is tempting to everyone involved, even though everybody benefits from acting in the longer-term collective interest.

These dilemma’s revolve around four core issues:

Individuals differences,
Dynamic processes within groups
Intergroup conflicts, and,
Uncertainty.

One specific type of social dilemmas are Common Dilemmas. Commons Dilemmas are situations where noncooperation between individual people leads to the deterioration and possible collapse of a resource. This concept was first introduced by Garrett Hardin in his work “The Tragedy of the Commons” in 1968. In a commons dilemma, each individual has an incentive to consume a resource at the greatest possible rate because they receive the full benefit of their consumption. As a result, there is unsustainable use of resources, and, in the end, everyone loses.

A classic example of a commons dilemma is a shared pasture or “common” where each herdsman has an incentive to graze as many animals as possible. Each herdsman receives the full benefit of each additional animal they add, but the cost of overgrazing is shared by all. If all herdsmen act in their immediate self-interest, the pasture will become overgrazed and unusable, to the detriment of all.

In the context of biodiversity loss, a commons dilemma can occur when individuals or groups overexploit natural resources or habitats, leading to a loss of biodiversity. This overexploitation can be driven by immediate self-interest, such as fishing or logging for timber, without considering the long-term collective interest of maintaining biodiversity.

BIODIVERSITY LOSS

Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, ranging from single-cell organisms up to blue whales. Through the increased pressure of humanity, biodiversity loss is now a significant threat. For example, a 69% decline in global populations of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians has been estimated by the WWF in their Living Planet Report. This is due to a range of factors, including habitat fragmentation, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation (for example overfishing).

Biodiversity is of paramount importance to humanity due to the ecosystem services it provides. These ecosystem services provide goods like crops or freshwater, provide non-material benefits like recreation, and regulate natural processes like temperature regulation. For example, many different insects are important for pollination of our crops, and we depend on them for our food. Yet, in many regions their numbers are declining, sometimes by 80% or more. This can cause serious issues for our long-term food production.

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