| Objectives: Cooperation is usually a dynamic and continuous process,and the wealth and ability of cooperative members are usually different.However,most studies have ignored the impact of member heterogeneity on cooperation when the current cooperation has an impact on the group’s future development.To investigate how endowment heterogeneity and marginal per-capita return heterogeneity affect individuals’ cooperation and payoffs in the dynamic public goods game where current cooperation can affect future benefits.And to further analyze whether heterogeneity affects individuals’ cooperative behavior by influencing their perceptions of fairness,and to understand the potential causes of behavioral differences.Methods: This study mainly adopted the dynamic public goods game paradigm and was divided into three parts and 240 students from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University were recruited in total.Experiment 1 explored the effect of endowment heterogeneity on group cooperation and payoffs in dynamic games by comparing homogenous condition(endowment of 50 for all)and heterogeneous condition(endowment of 30 for two persons and endowment of 70 for two persons).Experiment 2 compared the homogeneous condition(the initial marginal per-capita return is 0.25 for all)with the heterogeneous condition of marginal per-capita return(the initial marginal per-capita return is 0.21 for two people and 0.29 for the other two).to explore the effect of heterogeneity of marginal per-capita return on cooperation and revenue.In addition,a questionnaire was used after the two experiments to understand the cooperation strategies of individuals under different conditions.Results: In the dynamic public goods game,(1)the difference in cooperation levels between the endowment heterogeneous and homogeneous groups was not significant.In the heterogeneous group,the contribution value of the low endowment group was significantly lower than that of the high endowment group,but the contribution ratio was significantly higher than that of the high endowment group.(2)The level of cooperation efficiency and payoffs of the endowment heterogeneous group was significantly lower than that of the homogeneous group,and perception of fairness mediated the effect of heterogeneity on cooperation efficiency.(3)There was no significant difference in the level of cooperation between the heterogeneous and homogeneous groups in terms of marginal per-capita return.And there was no significant difference in cooperation between high and low marginal per-capita return groups and homogeneous groups.(4)The level of cooperation efficiency and payoffs of the heterogeneous group of marginal per-capita return was significantly lower than that of the homogeneous group,and the sense of fairness mediated the effect of heterogeneity on cooperation efficiency.(5)In the dynamic public goods game,individuals paid more attention to the level of team contribution,and the cooperation strategy was no longer reciprocal,but adjusted according to whether the overall team contribution meets the criteria.Conclusion: When current cooperation directly affects future gains,differences in group members’ wealth or ability do not significantly affect the level of group cooperation.But such differences can reduce the efficiency of group cooperation by decreasing individuals’ sense of fairness in cooperation,which in turn reduces the level of group payoffs. |
