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Egoism is a theory that states that all actions and behaviors are motivated by our own self-interest.

The other side of the spectrum is altruism which aims to motivate oneself to behave in a manner that is beneficial to another for the sake of the other. Egoism is particularly pertinent in the Tragedy of the Commons when an individual is motivated to benefit oneself by engaging in unsustainable practices while foregoing any harms that will come to others. Altruism will, thus, not able to be the dominant trait as any display of altruism will only result in the denial of oneself to resources, in a situation where a mere individual will not make a significant impact on the overall outlook of the environmental problem.

Delayed Consequences

Skinner, the founder of behavioral psychology, proposed that humans have an innate tendency to form associations with short-term consequences rather than delayed consequences. He argued that all behavior is determined by the consequences of our actions, which is a product of our ability to link the cause and the outcome.

Through his experiments, he found that rats were more likely to repeat a behavior if they were instantly rewarded and reduced behavior if they were punished. However, this effect was not observed if the period between the outcome and the consequence had a long period of time in between.

Similarly, the impact of the Tragedy of the Commons is often a delayed consequence. An individual who overexploits a resource unsustainably will initially be rewarded for his actions, as he gains more resources than others. This would reinforce this behavior as he is able to make the association between his behavior and the instant reward that follows. However, the individual is unable to realize that his actions are slowly depleting the finite resource as he is unable to make this association. Quite often, the individual does not face the negative consequences of his actions until the impact is irreversible.

Maladapative Evolutionary Behaviors

Ornstein and Ehrlich posit that humans are not evolved and adapted to the modern world. During most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers that had to put more emphasis on prolonging our survival through an ab libitum consumption of resources. As their resource supply was rather unstable, it was vital to take advantage of every opportunity to forage for resources.

Being hyper receptive to our immediate dangers was a more effective evolutionary coping mechanism that increased our chances of survival. Reacting strongly to short-term consequences helped humans avoid immediate dangers. From this, our psychology was fine-tuned to emphasize more on the here and now instead of the distant future.

Ancient humans did not have to worry about long-term consequences as much as we do now because the environment in which they lived was very harsh and brutal. Moreover, the anthropological impact of ancient humans did not reach a magnitude of consumption that significantly affected the natural environment. This was the type of environment in which modern humans have adapted for our continued survival in the wild.

With the introduction of agriculture in recent history, we developed a rather stable food source. Our hunger for as many resources, however, did not adapt to the modern world. The technologies of the modern world enable us to efficiently manipulate and exploit natural resources at an unprecedented and unsustainable rate. The mismatch between human’s evolutionary behavior for unlimited resource consumption and the aid of advanced technology further exacerbates the anthropological impact on the environment. This means that each individual has a greater rate of consumption of these resources, leading to an even quicker depletion and degradation of the environment.