Concept
In psychology, a social trap is a conflict of interest or perverse incentive where individuals or a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole. Social traps are the cause of countless environmental issues, including overfishing, energy "brownout" and "blackout" power outages during periods of extreme temperatures, the overgrazing of cattle on the Sahelian Desert, the destruction of the rainforest by logging interests and agriculture, and, most importantly, climate change. The term social trap was first introduced to the scientific community by John Platt's 1973 paper in American Psychologist, and in a book developed in an interdisciplinary symposium held at the University of Michigan. Building upon the concept of the "tragedy of the commons" in Garrett Hardin's pivotal article in Science (1968), Platt and others in the seminar applied behavioral psychology concepts to actions of people operating in social traps. By applying the findings of basic research on "schedules of operant reinforcement" (B.F. Skinner 1938, 1948, 1953, 1957; Keller and Schoenfeld, 1950), Platt recognized that individuals operating for short-term positive gain ("reinforcement") had a tendency to over-exploit a resource, which led to a long-term overall loss to society. The application of behavioral psychology terms to behaviors in the tragedy of the commons led to the realization that the same short-term versus long-term cause-and-effect relationship also applied to other human traps, in addition to the exploitation of commonly held resources. Besides defining this psychological phenomenon, Platt also distinguishes between social traps and social fences (countertraps). Social traps represent a behavior or action which prioritizes individual gains at the expense of collective gains. Social fence refers to a short-term avoidance behavior by individuals that leads to a long-term loss to the entire group. The missing hero trap is a perfect representation of a social fence.