Social traps and environmental policy
I argue that all the environmental problems mentioned above (and many other social problems) belong to a category of phenomenon called social traps (Platt 1973). Like animal traps, social traps lead an unwary victim into the jaws of disaster with a tempting bit of bait, and, once the victim is caught, make escape extremely difficult. By studying the features real-world social traps have in common, and by experimenting with some simple laboratory examples of social traps, we can learn more about their general nature and the nature of effective escapes from them. A broad ecological perspective can be effective in understanding, avoiding, and escaping from some social traps, but it must be coupled with effective public policy. Effective policy involves a range of activities from education to regulation to correcting the misleading short-term incentives (the bait) that create traps in the first place.
Publication Date: 1987
Credits: BioScience Vol. 37 No.6
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