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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
3 pages in length. Because the human being is essentially egotistical in composition, it is not surprising to learn how many people will - when engaged within a group that has common interests and/or a common goal - strive to reach that common denominator only so far as it also fulfills the individual's personal agenda. The free rider problem, which revolves around this mentality, illustrates the manner by which some people utilize the exponential power of a group to achieve specific goals the individual could not reach by himself. This is a troublesome mindset for groups as a whole because it gives the group a false sense of wholeness when striving for a particular objective, with the free rider becoming more of an albatross than an active participant unless coercion is a motivating component. No bibliography.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: LM1_TLCfreerdr.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
a common goal - strive to reach that common denominator only so far as it also fulfills the individuals personal agenda. The free rider problem, which revolves around this
mentality, illustrates the manner by which some people utilize the exponential power of a group to achieve specific goals the individual could not reach by himself. This is a
troublesome mindset for groups as a whole because it gives the group a false sense of wholeness when striving for a particular objective, with the free rider becoming more of
an albatross than an active participant unless coercion is a motivating component. Small groups are especially vulnerable to the detrimental nature of free riders due to what Coleman calls
"exploitation of the great by the small" whereby the minority has the power to bring down the majority by taking more than it is giving for the collective good.
Interestingly, Coleman points to the rational choice theory as a way to predict whether an individual will be a free rider or uphold a zealous approach to the groups common
goal. According to Coleman, there are two conditions that must be present for social norms to have any active role in addressing the free rider problem: "external or collective consequences
of individual actions...[and] structures of communication and networks which are sufficiently closed to bring about effective sanctioning." Society is bound by a set of rules - some written, some
spoken, others explicitly followed by virtue of inherent knowledge but all universally understood within the confines of that particular culture - which serve to govern civilized behavior. The deviant
behavior of breaking a social norm constitutes stepping over of very specific boundaries that prove to delineate a mandated proximity and/or behavior man has imposed upon his own species.
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