128 Social Trap
A tendency to pursue short-term gains that create long-term losses for the greater group.
• A situation in which people act to obtain short-term gains, and in so doing create losses for everyone in their group, including themselves.
• For example, ranchers overgraze cattle on public land. This depletes the land of grasses faster than the land can replenish. This then starves all of the ranchers’ cattle, including the original overgrazers.
• Social traps are most problematic when a resource is readily available and highly desirable, when people compete to access and use that resource, and when the long-term costs are not visible or easily monitored.
• Mitigate the effects of social traps by enforcing sustainable limits on resource ...
Get The Pocket Universal Principles of Design now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
