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Vol.7, No.1, 2021 936 

 

 

 

 

Public Goods Dilemma Experiment: How Will the 

Pressure & Situational Attribution Brought by the 

Reward &Punishment System Affect the Cooperative 

Behavior of Junior High School Students? 

By Liu, Y., Tang, M.L. & Tian, H. 

Correspondence to: Liu, Yu., Associate Professor, University of Electronic Sci-

ence and Technology of China, China. Email: liuyu2301@126.com 

N school education, the reward system and punishment system, as two 

common methods of controlling students’ behavior, have an important 

impact on the cooperative behavior of junior high school students. And what 

is the impact and how does the mechanism work? A study published in Edu-

cational Research and Experiment used the game experiment of Public 

Goods Dilemma, the pressure perception questionnaire, and the situational 

attribution questionnaire to analyze 285 junior high school students: 

 In the public goods dilemma experiment, a series of five rounds 

with different rewards and punishments are designed, including 

no rewards or punishments, continuous fixed rewards, variable-

ratio rewards, continuous fixed punishments, and variable-ratio 

punishments. The experiment used the amount of the subject 

coins for dependent variable as an indicator of cooperative behav-

iors among individuals. The more the amount of the coins, the 

higher the level of their cooperative behavior. The two experi-

mental rounds of continuous fixed reward and variable-ratio re-

ward are merged into the “reward group”, while the two experi-

mental bureaus of a continuous fixed penalty and variable-ratio 

penalty are merged into the “penalty group” and compared with 

the no reward or punishment group. 

 The perceived stress scale was consisted of 8 items and uses a 5-

point marking-system, ranging from 1 for “strongly disagree” to 5 

for “strongly agree”. The higher the score, the higher the level of 

perceived stress. The α coefficient is 0.87. As for the situational 

attribution questionnaire, using 4 items to judge the extent to in-

dividual and cooperative concerning the external rewards/pun-

ishments or economic. The α coefficient of the questionnaire in 

this study is 0.84. 

I 



 

Vol.7, No.1, 2021 937 

The research results are as follows: 

 Junior high school students will show more cooperative behavior 

under the reward system or punishment system. Compared with 

the continuous fixed reward and punishment system and no re-

ward and punishment system, junior high school students will 

have more cooperative behaviors under the variable-ratio reward 

and punishment system; 

 The reward system shows the direct and significant effects on the 

cooperative behavior of junior high school students, and indirect-

ly affects the cooperative behavior of junior high school students 

through the mediating effect of contextual attribution; 

 The punishment system shows the direct and significant effects 

on the cooperative behavior of junior high school students, and 

there are three indirect paths: punishment system → perceived 

stress → cooperative behavior, punishment system → situational 

attribution → cooperative behavior, punishment system → per-

ceived stress → situational attribution → cooperative behavior. 

This empirical study skillfully used game experiments, finding that 

situational attribution plays a mediating role between the reward system and 

the cooperative behavior of junior high school students, but the perceived 

stress does not have a significant mediating role between the two. Therefore, 

it is concluded that schools should promote both rewards and punishments, 

guiding students to establish a correct view of rewards and punishments, and 

educate students to rationally understand and correctly deal with pressure; At 

the same time, in conjunction with the requirements on adolescents psycho-

logical development , the school should establish and improve psychological 

counseling and mental health education system, and carry out targeted attrib-

ution training to guide students to form a positive and reasonable situational 

attribution method. 

 

Source: Educational Research and Experiment, 2020; 2020(4):91-96. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 


