Culture, beliefs and emotions in a public goods game

This paper experimentally tests the effect of cultural and historical information on public contributions toward the built hertiage conservation.  The study tests the effect of the information on the emotional state of the subjects. The test is intended to investigate the emotional state that the information could elicit prior to the experiment.  The subjects show positive emotion, they feel proud of their historical and cultural background after the screening of the photos related to the information.  The same information is then used to investigate its effect on pro social behavior in a simple public good game. In the emotion manipulation check, we find that participants feel proud of their historical and cultural values.  This may lead to more willingness to contribute to the public good.  The subjects who are primed with the cultural information display high cooperative behavior compared to subjects who are not primed with the same information.  In the contribution experiment, the primed subjects tend to be more optimistic on the contribution levels from the members in the same group. In the preferences elicitation exercise, it reveals that subjects in the Culture treatment are more reciprocal than subjects in Control treatment.  They tend to contribute more if other members contribute more, but this behavior is not observed in Control treatment.  In view of the importance of community participation in a heritage conservation project, the findings in this paper provide an important suggestion that incorporating cultural and historical information might encourage more pro-social behaviors with respect to heritage conservation.