Experimental Platforms for Behavioral Experiments on Social-Ecological Systems

Abstract

"Recently, there has been an increased interest in using behavioral experiments to study hypotheses on the governance of social-ecological experiments. A diversity of software tools are used to implement such experiments. In this paper we evaluate various publicly available platforms that could be used in research and education on the governance of social-ecological systems. The aims of the various platforms are distinct and this is noticeable in the differences in their user-friendliness and their adaptability to novel research questions. The more easily accessible platforms are useful for proto-typing experiments and for educational purposes to illustrate theoretical concepts. In order to advance novel research aims more elaborate programming experience is required to either implement an experiment from scratch or adjust existing experiment software. There is no ideal platform best suited for all possible use cases but we provide a menu of options and their associated tradeoffs."