After a year-long drought, the city of pine bluffs has banned all lawn sprinkling. many residents believe, however, that continued watering of their own lawn will have little effect on total water reserves. consequently, there is a disastrous drain on city water reserves caused by widespread illegal sprinkling. this incident best illustrates the dynamics of:
a) in-group bias
b) social traps
c) the dunamental attribution error
d) the bystander effect
e) the just-world phenomenon

b) social traps

Explanation:

social trap occurs when small group of individuals take a short cut that will temporarily resolve their predicament or problem, however this short term goal solution will have a severe impact in a long run to a large group of people. The most common example is how in the past chemical companies used to dump waste at the ocean , the waste would of course disappear as they had hoped however in a long run this posed a huge impact on the environment and health of the future generation.

This illegal sprinkling started by few people who thought it would not affect the society at large but at the end the city is faced with a drained city water reserves , which will cause many people to suffer as the result.

a is the answer because it just is