The Public Goods Problem is a social dilemma that focuses on contributing to public goods and the possible losses. The Public Goods Dilemma centers around the decision to contribute your time, energy, or money to something that will contribute to the common good. For example, if your community is building a public park and playground, you could let others do all the funding and building, and still use the public goods once they are available, but there’s a chance that because you didn’t contribute, it won’t come to fruition as there wasn’t enough help. On the other hand, if you do contribute, you’re cutting into your resources even if you benefit in the end, and there’s also a chance that it could still fail, and you’d have wasted some of your resources (Nelson, A. (2024) Social Dilemmas, courses.worldcampus.psu.edu, https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/fa24/22481–16074/content/05_lesson/02_page.html)
One of the main facets to this dilemma is the usage of resources, and the lack of certainity surrounding benefit. Of course, if you lent some of your resources and it got built, you would obviously benefit, however, the benefits aren’t guaranteed. To add to that, there’s a chance you could not lend any resources and still be able to benefit from the public good. However, the other side of the dileema is if you don’t lend you resources, it might not come to fruition, and you won’t benefit at all. However, in that scenario, you wouldn’t have lost any resources.
I’d like to add to this scenario and point out that even if the public good didn’t come to fruition, there may still be benefits to helping. Several studies have shown that there are benefits to volunteering, even if the volunteer work is done to get something out of it. In a 2018 article put out by Yeung and associates, they found that volunteering actually resulted in health benefits. In the study, Yeung and associates used data from the 2004 Survey of Texas adults, and evaluated the outcomes of individuals in the survey who indicated that they had participated in volunteer work. After identifying those individuals, they separated them into two groups: the other-oriented volunteering group and self-oriented volunteering group. Other-oriented volunteering was defined as volunteering for reasons of alturism and the betterment of humanity or the world, whereas self-oriented volunteering was volunteering for any organization related to recreation, arts, careers, education, or political campaigns. After analyzing the data, the researchers found that other-oriented volunteering and self-oriented volunteering resulted in improved outcomes in mental and physical health, life satisfaction, and social well-being. Other-oriented volunteering also had the benefit of lowering depressive symptoms, while self-oriented volunteering did not. Other-oriented volunteering was more beneficial to health outcomes, while self-oriented volunteering was more beneficial to social outcomes (Yeung et. al., 2018)
This study highlights that when it comes to volunteering, there will always be benefits to your participation. The Public Goods Dilemma deals with the uncertainity of benefits if resources are used. While the public good may not come to fruition, if the resource being used is time, there will always be benefits to volunteering your time. Given the health and social outcomes that result from volunteering, you can be certain in saying “it’s good to be good”
Works Cited
Nelson, A. (2024) Social Dilemmas, courses.worldcampus.psu.edu, https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/fa24/22481–16074/content/05_lesson/02_page.html
Yeung, J. W., Zhang, Z., & Kim, T. Y . (2018). V olunteering and health benefits in general adults: Cumulative effects and forms. BMC Public Health, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4561-8