Public engagement in collaborative natural resource management necessitates perspective taking, shared understanding, and collaboration. There is currently little understanding about how to reliably generate perspective-taking and collaboration, particularly in situations involving the unequal distribution of resources. Here we examine how using a computer-mediated scenario to simulate resource gain and loss influenced individual perspective-taking and behavior. Participants (n=180) were randomly assigned to each condition: high resources, low resources, lose resources, gain resources. Multilevel analysis revealed that losing resources decreased perspective-taking and collaboration. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this research for public engagement in environmental decisions.