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Attitudes and expectations towards others are major drivers of political polarization. However, there is limited understanding of their relevance when decisions with high stakes are taken. In this study, we compare self-reported attitudes against economically incentivized estimates of data coming from official sources and offer participants financial rewards for accuracy. Our methodology yields three principal findings. (i) Extreme attitudes from a small partisan subgroup primarily account for the observed partisan divide; this subgroup diminishes when incentivized estimates are considered. (ii) There is a weak correlation between economically incentivized and unincentivized measures within individual respondents. (iii) We introduce a novel metric for assessing perceived polarization. This metric allows participants to estimate data points for those with opposing political views, rewarding accurate predictions financially. Interestingly, this measure of perceived polarization correlates with attitudes but not with incentivized data estimates. This is in line with the concept of ‘false polarization’, attributing polarization more to expectations towards others than to genuine differences. These findings challenge the reliability of standard attitude surveys and suggest avenues for mitigating perceived polarization in contentious issues.

To reach the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, humanity should improve its capacity to achieve well-being and development while reducing its environmental impact. This calls for increased efficiency in the process of transforming natural resources into well-being. We present here a novel indicator called Ecological Efficiency and developed to capture this important aspect of the human-environment relation. We found large differences in efficiency among world countries. We then analyzed the relation between our indicator and several country-level variables encompassing different human dimensions, such as economic, political, and demographic. Results highlighted that demography affects Ecological Efficiency more than other factors.

Clear indicators and evaluation criteria are essential to keep humanity’s environmental impact within planetary boundaries. We introduce a new criterion based on two constraints, accounting for both ecological and human sustainability. The ecological constraint is defined through a novel indicator, the eco-balance, grounded on the well known concept of ecological footprint and the new concept of population biodensity. The human sustainability constraint is based on the estimated level of biocapacity consumption needed to achieve an acceptable level of human development. The application of our criterion to world countries shows where technological improvements and changes in consumption patterns are sufficient to reach sustainability, and where actions on population and/or restoring ecological capital are also needed. This highlights synergic patterns going beyond simplistic schemes, such as overconsumption vs. overpopulation or developed vs. developing countries.

The effectiveness of public health measures to prevent COVID-19 contagion has required less vulnerable citizens to pay an individual cost in terms of personal liberty infringement to protect more vulnerable groups. However, the close relationship between scientific experts and politicians in providing information on COVID-19 measures makes it difficult to understand which communication source was more effective in increasing pro-social behaviour. Here, we present an online experiment performed in May 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic on 1131 adult residents in Lombardy, Italy, one of the world's hardest hit regions. Results showed that when scientific experts recommended anti-contagion measures, participants were more sensitive to pro-social motivations, unlike whenever these measures were recommended by politicians and scientific experts together. Our findings suggest the importance of trusted sources in public communication during a pandemic.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unusually high submission rate of scholarly articles. Given that most academics were forced to work from home, the competing demands for familial duties may have penalized the scientific productivity of women. To test this hypothesis, we looked at submitted manuscripts and peer review activities for all Elsevier journals between February and May 2018-2020, including data on over 5 million authors and referees. Results showed that during the first wave of the pandemic, women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts than men. This deficit was especially pronounced among more junior cohorts of women academics. The rate of the peer-review invitation acceptance showed a less pronounced gender pattern with women taking on a greater service responsibility for journals, except for health & medicine, the field where the impact of COVID-19 research has been more prominent. Our findings suggest that the first wave of the pandemic has created potentially cumulative advantages for men.

Human societies and natural ecosystems are under threat by growing populations, overexploitation of natural resources and climate change. This calls for more sustainable utilization of resources based on past experiences and insights from many different disciplines. Interdisciplinary approaches to studies of historical commons have potential to identify drivers of change and keys to success in the past, and offer advice about the management and use of shared resources in contemporary and future systems. We address these issues by applying an ecological perspective to historical data on social-ecological systems. We perform comparisons and time series analyses for nine successful Dutch commons for which high-resolution data on the regulatory activities and use of shared resources is available for on average 380 years (range 236 to 568) during the period 1300 to 1972. Within commons, institutional developments were oscillating, with periods of intense regulatory activity being separated by periods of low activity, and with the dynamics of regulations being largely independent across commons. Ecological theory posits that species that occupy similar niches should show correlated responses to environmental challenges; however, commons using more similar resources did not have more parallel or similar institutional developments. One notable exception was that sanctioning was more frequent in commons that directed more regulatory activities towards non-renewable subsoil resources, whereas there was no association between sanctioning and the use of renewable resources. This might indicate that commoners were aware of potential resource depletion and attempted to influence freeriding by actively trying to solve the underlying social dilemmas. Sanctioning regulations were more frequent during the first than during the second part of a common's life, indicating that while sanctioning might have been important for the establishment of commons it was not key to the long-term persistence of historical commons.

To increase transparency in science, some scholarly journals have begun publishing peer review reports. Here, the authors show how this policy shift affects reviewer behavior by analyzing data from five journals piloting open peer review.

We present an analysis of regulatory activities in historical commons offering a unique picture of their long-term institutional dynamics. The analysis took into account almost 3,800 regulatory activities in eighteen European commons in two countries across seven centuries. Despite differences in time and space, we found a shared pattern where an initial, highly-dynamic institutional-definition phase was followed by a relatively long period of stability and a final burst of activities, possibly in an attempt to respond to new challenges. In addition, most of the initial regulatory activities focused on resource use, while towards the end other activities prevailed. Our approach allows for a better understanding of institutional dynamics and our findings also provide important insights about how to regulate the use of current natural resources.

Historical commons represent self-governed governance regimes that regulate the use and management of natural and man-made shared resources. Despite growing scientific interests, analyses of commons evolution and temporal dynamics are rare and drivers of change (birth, adaptation, dissolution) remain obscure. We apply an interdisciplinary approach and address these issues from an eco-evolutionary perspective. Analyses of > 400 Dutch commons over more than a millennium (between the 9th and the 20th century) uncovered that most commons originated between 1200 and 1700, and that there was a particularly high rate of evolution during 1300-1550, a pattern intermediate to gradualism and punctuated equilibrium in biological evolution. Dissolutions of commons were rare prior to 1800 and peaked around 1850, comparable to a mass extinction in biology. Temporal trends in number, spatial distribution, density, and dispersion of historical commons were distinctive and resembled developments seen at the levels of species and individuals in the growth of biological communities and populations, in that they showed signs of saturation determined by the abundance and distribution of resources. The spatiotemporal dynamics of commons also pointed to important roles of social, economic and political factors, such as new reclamations of resources and pressure on resources due to population growth. Despite internal and external pressures, the self-governing commons studied here were very successful, in the sense that they persisted for on average >350 years. There was a weak positive relationship between the use of multiple resources and the lifespan of commons, resembling associations between diversity and persistence seen in biological systems. It is argued that eco-evolutionary perspectives can further the understanding of the long-term dynamics of commons as institutions for collective action, vitalize future research, improve management of shared goods, and advise about sustainable utilization of finite resources.

In this paper we present an abstract replication of institutional emergence patterns observed in common pool resource (CPR) problems. We used the ADICO grammar of institutions as the basic structure to model both agents’ strategies and institutions. Through an evolutionary process, agents modify their behaviours and eventually establish a management institution for their CPR system, leading to significant benefits both for them and for the commons as a whole. We showed that, even if our model has a high level of abstraction, by taking an evolutionary perspective and using the ADICO structure we are able to observe common institutional patterns. We confirmed that, even within this simplified environment, institutions significantly contributed to the sustainable management of common-pool resource systems.

In this paper, we examine factors affecting owners’ intention for renovation of their detached houses. Furthermore, we analyze their interest in choosing a one-stop-shop (OSS) service for the renovation, even though such a concept is not yet established in Sweden, but emerging in other parts of Europe. Our study is based on responses to an online questionnaire survey of 971 house owners residing in Kronoberg Region in Sweden. About 76% of the respondents intend to renovate in the near future, with approximately 71% of them preferring to renovate individual components of their dwelling and 5% to renovate their whole house in steps. House owners of younger age, higher income, higher education, and those with an interest for environmental issues, were the ones most interested in physical renovations, which improves energy efficiency of the building. For those house owners, one-stop-shop can facilitate the decision-making process, and help them to choose those measures that will improve their quality of life. Approximately 20% of the respondents had a positive view towards an one-stop-shop, which is an indicator that market for such a service exists. Parameters such as quality of work, cost and energy savings and specification of measures to be adopted are the key for the promotion of one-stop-shop. Additionally, house owners want to have a certain level of involvement in the selection of actors performing the renovation. Moreover, financial incentives, e.g., loans, do not play a significant role for the selection of one-stop-shop, but act as complementary motive for house owners.

The debate on the causes of conflict in human societies has deep roots. In particular, the extent of conflict in hunter-gatherer groups remains unclear. Some authors suggest that large-scale violence only arose with the spreading of agriculture and the building of complex societies. To shed light on this issue, we developed a model based on operatorial techniques simulating population-resource dynamics within a two-dimensional lattice, with humans and natural resources interacting in each cell of the lattice. The model outcomes under different conditions were compared with recently available demographic data for prehistoric South America. Only under conditions that include migration among cells and conflict was the model able to consistently reproduce the empirical data at a continental scale. We argue that the interplay between resource competition, migration, and conflict drove the population dynamics of South America after the colonization phase and before the introduction of agriculture. The relation between population and resources indeed emerged as a key factor leading to migration and conflict once the carrying capacity of the environment has been reached.

In this paper, we identify the socio-economic attributes and attitudes that have influenced house owners in renovating their homes in the past. Our study is based on responses to an online questionnaire survey of 971 house owners living in Kronoberg County in Sweden. Results showed that the interest and willingness of the house owners to perform a renovation varied depending on their demographic background and the age of the house. The latter positively affected past renovations, only when combined with the residence time. Furthermore, the age of house owners strongly and positively affected the probability of performing aesthetic type of renovations, because of a long time of residence in the house. Younger, town living, and highly educated house owners seem to be more concerned regarding saving energy, which motivated them to perform physical renovations on their house. Our results also suggest that income, level of education, and place of residence have an effect on renovation decisions only through their effect on the energy concern of house owners, and a varied effect on renovation decisions, when combined with the time of residence in the house.

The aim of this study was to investigate the opinion of authors on the overall quality and effectiveness of reviewers’ contributions to reviewed papers. We employed an on-line survey of thirteen journals which publish articles in the field of life, social or technological sciences. Responses received from 193 authors were analysed using a mixed-effects model in order to determine factors deemed the most important in the authors’ evaluation of the reviewers. Qualitative content analysis of the responses to open questions was performed as well. The mixed-effects model revealed that the authors’ assessment of the competence of referees strongly depended on the final editorial decision and that the speed of the review process was influential as well. In Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis on seven questions detailing authors’ opinions, perception of review speed remained a significant predictor of the assessment. In addition, both the perceived competence and helpfulness of the reviewers significantly and positively affected the authors’ evaluation. New models were used to re-check the value of these two factors and it was confirmed that the assessment of the competence of reviewers strongly depended on the final editorial decision.

Common-pool resources are natural or man-made resources shared among different users, a condition that produces a competition for their utilization leading often (although not necessarily) to their degradation or even to their destruction. This paper shortly discusses the "theory of the commons", as developed in the last 20 years by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues, and illustrates it by mean of case studies regarding a number of irrigation systems in Northern Italy (Lombardy and Vallée d’Aoste). We show that that different social mechanisms, like the shared values e the social network existing inside the community of users, play a significant role in influencing the outcomes of the institutional schemes for the commons management.

Common-pool resources are natural or man-made resources shared among different users, a condition that produces a competition for their utilization leading often (although not necessarily) to their degradation or even to their destruction. This paper shortly discusses the "theory of the commons", as developed in the last 20 years by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues, and illustrates it by mean of case studies regarding a number of irrigation systems in Northern Italy (Lombardy and Aosta Valley). We show that that different social mechanisms, like the shared values e the social network existing inside the community of users, play a significant role in influencing the outcomes of the institutional schemes for the commons management.

Any trust situation involves a certain amount of risk for trustors that trustees could abuse. In some cases, intermediaries exist who play a crucial role in the exchange by providing reputational information. To examine under what conditions intermediary opinion could have a positive impact on cooperation, we designed two experiments based on a modified version of the investment game where intermediaries rated the behaviour of trustees under various incentive schemes and different role structures. We found that intermediaries can increase trust if there is room for indirect reciprocity between the involved parties. We also found that the effect of monetary incentives and social norms cannot be clearly separable in these situations. If properly designed, monetary incentives for intermediaries can have a positive effect. On the one hand, when intermediary rewards are aligned with the trustor’s interest, investments and returns tend to increase. On the other hand, fixed monetary incentives perform less than any other incentive schemes and endogenous social norms in ensuring trust and fairness. These findings should make us reconsider the mantra of incentivization of social and public conventional policy.

Gender differences in cooperative choices and their neural correlates were investigated in a situation where reputation represented a crucial issue. Males and females were involved in an economic exchange (trust game) where economic and reputational payoffs had to be balanced in order to increase personal welfare. At the behavioral level, females showed a stronger reaction to negative reputation judgments that led to higher cooperation than males, measured by back transfers in the game. The neuroanatomical counterpart of this gender difference was found within the reward network (engaged in producing expectations of positive results) and reputation-related brain networks, such as the self-control network (engaged in strategically resisting the temptation to defect) and the mentalizing network (engaged in thinking about how one is viewed by others), in which the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the medial (M)PFC respectively play a crucial role. Furthermore, both DLPFC and MPFC activity correlated with the amount of back transfer, as well as with the personality dimensions assessed with the Big-Five Questionnaire (BFQ-2). Males, according to their greater DLPFC recruitment and their higher level of the BFQ-2 subscale of Dominance, were more focused on implementing a profit-maximizing strategy, pursuing this target irrespectively of others' judgments. On the contrary, females, according to their greater MPFC activity and their lower level of Dominance, were more focused on the reputation per se and not on the strategic component of reputation building. These findings shed light on the sexual dimorphism related to cooperative behavior and its neural correlates.

Commons dilemmas are interaction situations where a common good is provided or exploited by a group of individuals so that optimal collective outcomes clash with private interests. Although in these situations, social norms and institutions exist that might help individuals to cooperate, little is known about the interaction effects between positive and negative incentives and exit options by individuals. We performed a modified public good game experiment to examine the effect of exit, rewards and punishment, as well as the interplay between exit and rewards and punishment. We found that punishment had a stronger effect than rewards on cooperation if considered by itself, whereas rewards had a stronger effect when combined with voluntary participation. This can be explained in terms of the 'framing effect', i.e., as the combination of exit and rewards might induce people to attach higher expected payoffs to cooperative strategies and expect better behaviour from others.