This volume began by pointing to the widespread recognition throughout the social sciences, as well as in law, management, and public policy of Tthe importance of being able to secure reliable public cooperation with groups, organizations, and societies. Such cooperation aids authorities and institutions and increases the effectiveness and viability of groups.
The question raised is why such cooperation occurs. To address this question two broad categories of motivation were outlined and contrasted. The first was instrumental—the impact upon behavior of the material gains and losses associated with undertaking different types of behavior. The second type of motivation was social. Two types of social motivation were identified: (1) dispositions and (2) policies and practices. Dispositions are the general behavioral tendencies associated with attitudes, values, and identity. Policies and practices are the ways in which authorities and institutions exercise their authority, including their decision-making procedures, their interpersonal treatment of those over whom their authority is being exercised, and the trust in the benevolence and sincerity of their motivations that they create through their actions.
The influence of these two types of motivation upon cooperation was examined using research conducted in managerial, legal, and political settings. The results consistently suggested that social motivations exert a strong influence upon cooperative behavior. This was particularly true of two key voluntary forms of cooperation: deference to rules and extra-role behavior. This influence of social motivations was found to be distinct from, and typically stronger than, the influ-ence of incentives and sanctions.
When social motivations were separated into dispositions and policies and practices, the findings suggest that two aspects of policies and practices were central to shaping dispositions: procedural justice and motive-based trust. Those authorities and institutions that exercised authority fairly and that communicated sincere and benevolent intentions encouraged their members to develop supportive dispositions. Those dispositions provided a reason for people to act on behalf of the organization that was distinct from whatever incentives or sanctions were deployed to motivate cooperation. Dispositions exerted a general influence upon behavior, encouraging cooperation of varying types in a wide variety of settings. They further provided a reason for people to cooperate during difficult periods or times of change when it is harder to motivate cooperation instrumentally because resources are scarce and any future instrumental gains and losses uncertain.
While the two sources of motivation—instrumental and social—were treated in parallel in this volume, it is argued that organizations gain when they create a structure in which social motivations are the primary motivational framework, because instrumental motivations undermine social motivations over time. In contrast, a pyramid of motivation in which people are generally treated through authority structures designed to encourage the development of supportive attitudes, values, and identities best captures the ability of most people to be motivated in this way. In such a framework those who are unable or unwilling to respond to the policies and practices associated with social motivations are then treated in more instrumental ways. This approach was shown to be the most likely to produce groups, organizations, and societies that both survive and flourish.