Empathy‐induced altruism in a prisoner's dilemma II: what if the target of empathy has defected?

What if participants in a one‐trial prisoner's dilemma know before making their decision that the other person has already defected? From the perspective of classic game theory, a dilemma no longer exists. It is clearly in their best interest to defect too. The empathy‐altruism hypothesis predicts, however, that if they feel empathy for the other, then a dilemma remains: self‐interest counsels defection; empathy‐induced altruism counsels not. This motivational conflict should lead at least some empathically aroused individuals not to defect. To test this prediction, we placed 60 undergraduate women in a one‐trial prisoner's dilemma in which they knew the other had already defected. Among those not induced to feel empathy, very few (0.05) did not defect in return. Among those induced to feel empathy for the other, almost half (0.45) did not defect. These results underscore the power of empathy‐induced altruism to affect responses in a prisoner's dilemma. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reason and Pareto‐Optimization

This paper takes up David Gauthier's most recent (2013) defense of the rationality of cooperation in prisoner's dilemmas. In that defense, Gauthier argues for a Pareto‐optimizing theory of rational choice. According to Gauthier, rational action should sometimes aim at Pareto‐optimization, and cooperation in prisoner's dilemmas is rational because it is Pareto‐optimizing. I argue that Pareto‐optimization cannot justify cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma in a manner that is also consistent with Gauthier's other desiderata. Either: (1) the rationality of cooperation must derive from what is beneficial for the group rather than what is beneficial for the individual, leaving the individual qua individual without any reason to cooperate, or (2) Gauthier cannot explain why defecting in prisoner's dilemmas is not also rational.     

The effects of empathy on search efforts for missing persons

People have difficulty sighting missing persons, partially because people's limited cognitive resources are required for searching. As a result, people sometimes do not devote resources to searching. This research will examine whether empathy increases the resources devoted to searching and search performance. In Experiment 1, we will manipulate empathy toward a formerly missing person and measure willingness to volunteer to search and actual search performance. In Experiment 2, we will manipulate empathy felt toward a missing person. We will measure the time participants spend studying the missing person's photograph. We hypothesize that participants induced to feel empathy will indicate more willingness to search (Exp 1 & 2), put more effort toward searching (Exp 1), and spend more time studying the photograph (Exp 2) than those not induced to feel empathy. If empathy increases search effort and performance, it could be induced in actual missing persons cases to increase recovery rates.     

Effects of initial choices in the prisoner's dilemma

In the two‐person prisoner's dilemma game (PDG), there is considerable evidence that the tit‐for‐tat (TFT) strategy is most effective in inducing the other person to cooperate. One of the important features of the TFT strategy is that it cooperates on the first trial. We varied the initial choices of a simulated other, and tested the effects of (a) initial choices (cooperation or defection), and (b) persistence of initial choices: unilateral cooperation (or defection) on the first trial, first two trials, or first four trials. Results showed that a cooperative strategy—one that starts with cooperative choices—induced greater cooperation than a strategy that started with defections. The results of this study clearly show that (a) a cooperative strategy—one that initiates unilateral cooperation at the outset and then adopts a TFT strategy—is very effective in inducing subsequent cooperation from the other party, (b) the effectiveness of a cooperative strategy varies directly with the cooperative orientation of the other party (a cooperative strategy is more effective against a cooperative than a competitive person), and (c) initial cooperation is more effective if it is repeated more than once. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can Lonely People Behave Morally? The Joint Influence of Loneliness and Empathy on Moral Identity

We examine how loneliness moderates the effect of empathy on moral identity: the extent to which being a moral person is important to an individual's identity. Results of four studies show that only lonely people have increased moral identity when they have high (vs. low) empathy; empathy does not reliably increase moral identity for nonlonely people. We demonstrate these effects with psychological measures of moral identity as well as with downstream moral behaviors in various consumer settings. Our findings are consistent with the motivation theory of loneliness and empathy: Lonely people are capable, but are not motivated to empathize.     

No Place to Hide: When Shame Causes Proselfs to Cooperate

Shame is considered a social emotion with action tendencies that elicit socially beneficial behavior. Yet, unlike other social emotions, prior experimental studies do not indicate that incidental shame boosts prosocial behavior. Based on the affect as information theory, we hypothesize that incidental feelings of shame can increase cooperation, but only for self-interested individuals, and only in a context where shame is relevant with regards to its action tendency. To test this hypothesis, cooperation levels are compared between a simultaneous prisoner's dilemma (where “defect” may result from multiple motives) and a sequential prisoner's dilemma (where “second player defect” is the result of intentional greediness). As hypothesized, shame positively affected proselfs in a sequential prisoner's dilemma. Hence ashamed proselfs become inclined to cooperate when they believe they have no way to hide their greediness, and not necessarily because they want to make up for earlier wrong-doing.     

Risk and Prisoner's Dilemma: A Reinterpretation of Coombs' Re‐parameterization

We propose a model to measure risk in a prisoner's dilemma based on Coombs' (1973) re‐parameterization of the game as an individual risk decision‐making task that chooses between a gamble of cooperation and another gamble of defection. Specifically, we propose an index, r, to represent the risk associated with cooperation relative to defection. In conjunction with Rapoport's (1967) index of cooperation (K), our formulation of risk allows us to construct games that vary in risk (as indexed by r) while controlling for cooperativeness (as indexed by K). Following utility analysis that models risk seeking as a convex utility function and risk averse as a concave function, we predict that risk‐seeking people cooperate more in games that the cooperation choice is more risky, whereas risk‐averse people cooperate more in games that the cooperation choice is less risky. In the three studies that we varied game parameters, used different measures of risk orientation and prosocial orientation and used different experimental procedures, we found robust results supporting our predictions. Theoretical analysis of our formulation further suggests that risk and cooperativeness of a prisoner's dilemma game is not entirely independent. Games that have a higher cooperativeness index are necessarily more risky. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Probability of reciprocation in repeated prisoner's dilemma games

Both social cooperation and self‐control require reciprocation. In social cooperation situations a single person's cooperative act, if not reciprocated by others, would be unreinforced both immediately and in the long term. Similarly, a single act of self‐control (refusing a single cigarette, for example), if not followed up by other such acts, would also be unreinforced immediately and in the long term. The present experiments varied probability of reciprocation in a prisoner's dilemma‐like game that could resemble a social cooperation or a self‐control situation. Participants earned points by playing against a computer. The computer offered the participant a choice between 5 or 6 points (‘cooperation’ by the computer) or between 1 or 2 points (‘defection’ by the computer). The participant's choice of the lesser alternative (‘cooperation’) or the greater alternative (‘defection’) on the current trial led, respectively, to cooperation or defection by the computer on the next trial with a probability (probability of reciprocation, PR) which could vary. When PR was greater than 63%, consistent cooperation maximized the participant's earnings. When PR was less than 63%, defection maximized earnings. Three conditions were studied: PR signaled by spinners; PR unsignaled; PR unsignaled with participants believing that they were playing with another person, not the computer. With PR = 100% (‘tit‐for‐tat’) and PR = 50%, the modal participant maximized earnings under all three conditions. With PR = 75%, participants maximized earnings only when PR was signaled. These results indicate that differences between people's tendency to cooperate with other people (social cooperation) and their tendency to cooperate with their own future interests (self‐control) may lie in differences in subjective PR. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lead Us (Not) into Temptation: Testing the Motivational Mechanisms Linking Honesty–Humility to Cooperation

Over the past decades, there has been considerable interest in individual differences in cooperative behaviour and how these can be explained. Whereas the Honesty–Humility dimension from the HEXACO model of personality has been identified as a consistent predictor of cooperation, the underlying motivational mechanisms of this association have remained unclear—especially given the confound between the temptation to exploit others and the fear of being exploited as motivational drivers of defection in social dilemmas. In a reanalysis and a new experiment, we tease apart these mechanisms by manipulating the rank order of pay‐offs in a symmetric two‐person game paradigm, essentially implementing the classic prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and chicken games. Results revealed that Honesty–Humility predicted cooperation specifically in the games in which temptation was a potential motivator of defection, whereas it did not account for cooperation in those games in which only fear implied defection. Our findings thereby shed light on the underlying motivational mechanisms of the Honesty–Humility–cooperation link and, more generally, demonstrate how economic games can be used to disentangle such mechanisms. Copyright © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Larger reward values alone are not enough to entice more cooperation

Two experiments using an iterated prisoner's dilemma game examined under which conditions participants' cooperation rates would either change due to monetary value changes (e.g., 3 cents to 3 dollars) or not change due to numeric value changes (e.g., 3 dollars to 300 cents). A total of 102 university students played the game against a computer that employed one of four strategies across blocks. Results showed high rates of cooperation when participants played against a tit-for-tat strategy and low rates of cooperation against a random strategy. There was no change in cooperation rates due to changes in numeric value alone and a decrease in cooperation rates when large monetary values were at stake. Cooperation rates were higher and cooperation responses slower at earlier stages of the game. I argue that people's ability to strategize plays a key role in the changing rates and speed of cooperative behaviour in the prisoner's dilemma.     

HOBBES AND GAME THEORY REVISITED: ZERO‐SUM GAMES IN THE STATE OF NATURE

The aim of this paper is to critically review the game‐theoretic discussion of Hobbes and to develop a game‐theoretic interpretation that gives due attention both to Hobbes's distinction between “moderates” and “dominators” and to what actually initiates conflict in the state of nature, namely, the competition for vital goods. As can be shown, Hobbes's state of nature contains differently structured situations of choice, the game‐theoretic representation of which requires the prisoner's dilemma and the assurance game and the so‐called assurance dilemma. However, the “state of war” ultimately emerges from situations that cannot be described by any of these games because they represent zero‐sum games in which the outcome of mutual cooperation does not exist.     

Defection in the dark? A randomized‐response investigation of cooperativeness in social dilemma games

As previous research has demonstrated numerous times, humans show a robust tendency for cooperation. However, part—or indeed all—of this cooperativeness may be due to socially desirable responding. To address this problem, we propose and apply a new approach for the unbiased measurement of cooperativeness in social dilemma games. Specifically, we employ an extension of the randomized‐response technique (RRT). The RRT protects the privacy of respondents by adding random noise to their responses. It thus encourages more honest responding and thereby provides less biased estimates of sensitive attributes. In a large‐scale study with 2043 respondents we maximized anonymity in a one‐shot prisoner's dilemma game through use of the RRT. Comparing the prevalence rates for cooperation obtained via the RRT with those from direct self‐report showed that traditional direct questioning formats overestimate cooperation rates, with a relative bias of 18%. This finding suggests that to a considerable extent, self‐reported cooperation is due to socially desirable responding, rather than actual cooperativeness. However, our results also demonstrate that cooperation remains substantial even under conditions of maximized anonymity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumer recycling: An ethical decision‐making process

Although recycling is often experienced as a moral dilemma, studies that systematically approach this issue from an ethical perspective are scarce. Moreover, previous studies have explored recycling by mainly using single ethical constructs, such as moral norms, values or obligations, rarely approaching it as an ethical decision‐making process. Our study takes a more holistic approach and integrates the recycling literature with business ethics theory in order to develop a conceptual model of ethical decision making involved in recycling. The model is based on Jones' issue‐contingent model and its key concept, that is, moral intensity, which we extend by adding altruism as an important personality trait that influences pro‐social behaviour. The data were collected from a sample of 367 adult consumers, representative of the Slovenian population by gender and age. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling. The results of our study confirmed the relationships between three key facets of ethical decision making: moral recognition, moral judgment and moral intention. Higher levels of moral recognition were found to lead to more positive moral judgments, which in turn positively influenced the formation of intentions to recycle. Moreover, moral intensity was found to be a significant predictor of moral recognition and moral judgment, while altruism was found to be a significant predictor of moral recognition. These findings hold important implications for public policy makers and social marketers who have to consider not only the consumer characteristics but also the issue characteristics in seeking to understand and influence consumer recycling. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prior experience and patterning in a prisoner's dilemma game

Female college students first played a pseudo-prisoner's dilemma (PPD) game with the experimenter, who followed a fixed strategy. In the first experiment the experimenter's strategies for different groups of subjects were: (a) play tit-for-tat; (b) play randomly; (c) always cooperate; (d) always defect (‘cooperation’ and ‘defection’, defined as in an actual prisoner's dilemma game). Only the tit-for-tat group increased cooperation over trials; other groups decreased cooperation. After playing the PPD with the experimenter, subjects played an actual prisoner's dilemma (PD) game with each other. In the PD game, subjects began cooperating moderately but cooperation deteriorated regardless of what the experimenter's strategy had been in the earlier (PPD) game. In a second experiment, subjects again played a PPD game with the experimenter and then played a PD game with each other. Half played one trial at a time as in the first experiment while half played in patterns of four trials at a time. In the PD game, patterning of trials retarded the development of mutual defection regardless of previous experience. The cooperation-preserving effect of patterning of trials in this social task is compared with similar effects on individual tasks involving self-control and risk-aversion. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting cooperation in competitive conditions: The role of sportspersonship,moral competence,and emotional intelligence

ObjectivesThe purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive capabilities of sportspersonship, moral competence, and emotional intelligence on cooperation in varying competitive conditions.DesignAn experimental study was conducted, examining responses in a prisoner's dilemma game with manipulated conditions.MethodForty-three participants were randomly assigned to an accumulative or competitive condition, in which they contested 10 rounds of choosing to cooperate or defect.ResultsWhether the condition was accumulative or competitive did not significantly predict cooperation. In the final round of each contest however, cooperation was significantly reduced. Sportspersonship predicted a significant amount of cooperation percentage, while final round cooperation was predicted by emotional intelligence.ConclusionsCooperation is in part determined by individual levels of sportspersonship in all conditions except when actions are free of future consequence. In such conditions, emotional intelligence appears to be a stronger indicator of cooperation. The implications of the study are that researchers and practitioners should consider how to develop sportspersonship and emotional intelligence to boost cooperation in various domains.     

Personal trust extends cooperation beyond trustees: A Mexican study

We studied 2 groups of workers from Oaxaca (Mexico) with different levels of income and education to investigate the role that the affective‐based psychological mechanism of personal trust, as evolutionarily acquired, plays on group cooperation. We measured trust levels through some questionnaires and cooperative behaviour through an iterated prisoner's dilemma under different conditions and analysed trust networks of group members. While these groups did not differ in trust levels or cooperation among trustees, they did differ in terms of cooperation with other group members. Such differences are related to dissimilarities in the trust network topology—as a measure of group cohesion. These results suggest that some personal trust networks extend cooperation within a group beyond trustees in a way that complements the role of the reputation for indirect reciprocity.     

Personality Traits and Friendship Formation in Adolescent Girls

Summary

The present experiment demonstrated that Ss led to believe that an external cause is responsible for their arousal at seeing a woman in pain will be less likely to help her than those attributing their arousal to sympathy for her. Ten men and 10 women were told that exposure to an aversive noise would produce symptoms of physiological arousal; another 10 men and 10 women were told that irrelevant symptoms might occur. Those expecting irrelevant symptoms from noise bombardment helped a woman with a hurt knee significantly more than those expecting the noise to cause symptoms typical of arousal; these results provided support for both Schachter's cognitive attribution theory of emotion and Aronfreed's empathy theory of altruism.     

When is it wrong to eat animals? The relevance of different animal traits and behaviours

Research suggests that animals’ capacity for agency, experience, and benevolence predict beliefs about their moral treatment. Four studies built on this work by examining how fine‐grained information about animals’ traits and behaviours (e.g., can store food for later vs. can use tools) shifted moral beliefs about eating and harming animals. The information that most strongly affected moral beliefs was related to secondary emotions (e.g., can feel love), morality (e.g., will share food with others), empathy (e.g., can feel others' pain), social connections (e.g., will look for deceased family members), and moral patiency (e.g., can feel pain). In addition, information affected moral judgements in line with how it affected superordinate representations about animals’ capacity for experience/feeling but not agency/thinking. The results provide a fine‐grained outline of how, and why, information about animals’ traits and behaviours informs moral judgements.     

Empathic joy and the empathy-altruism hypothesis

Three experiments tested whether empathy evokes egoistic motivation to share vicariously in the victim's joy at improvement (the empathic-joy hypothesis) instead of altruistic motivation to increase the victim's welfare (the empathy-altruism hypothesis). In Experiment 1, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy for a young woman in need were given a chance to help her. Some believed that if they helped they would receive feedback about her improvement; others did not. In Experiments 2 and 3, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy were given a choice of getting update information about a needy person's condition. Before choosing, they were told the likelihood of the person's condition having improved--and of their experiencing empathic joy--was 20%, was 50%, or was 80%. Results of none of the experiments patterned as predicted by the empathic-joy hypothesis; instead, results of each were consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis.     

Moral Sentimentalism

In a way reminiscent of Hume's approach in the Treatise, a reviving moral sentimentalism can use the notion of empathy to ground both its normative account of moral obligation and its metaethical account of moral language. A virtuous person is empathically caring about others and expresses such feeling/motivation in her actions. But the judgment that something is right or good is also based in empathy, and the sentimentalist can espouse a form of moral realism by making use of a Kripkean reference-fixer theory of the role of feelings of approval and disapproval in moral judgment.