Imagine: it's the end of fall semester of your senior year. You and a friend have been caught cheating on a major summative exam in a required class, but the teacher doesn’t have all the facts. The teacher is willing to make a deal with you if you confess, so he isolates you in separate rooms and takes your phones so you can’t communicate with one another. You don’t know what your friend will do!

The teacher tells you, "If you confess and your friend stays quiet, I will not penalize you at all. If your friend confesses while you stay quiet, they will NOT be penalized, but you will earn a zero for the assessment (which will bring your grade to an ‘F’). If you both confess I'll allow you both to retake the assessment and earn up to a ‘C’ on it. If neither of you confesses, I’ll forget about this entire incident and you will both keep the grade you originally earned."

What do you choose??

In some situations, pursuing our personal interests also supports collective well-being. What example(s) can you think of?

However, in other situations, by purusing their own self-interest rather than the good of the group, people become caught in mutually destructive behavior. These are called social traps.

What real-life example(s) can you think of?