Sharing Money With Humans Versus Computers: On the Role of Honesty-Humility and (Non-)Social Preferences

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062110556
Author(s):  
Yngwie Asbjørn Nielsen ◽  
Isabel Thielmann ◽  
Ingo Zettler ◽  
Stefan Pfattheicher
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Economic Games ◽  
Social Game ◽  
The Social ◽  
As If

Does giving behavior in economic games reflect true prosocial preferences or is it due to confusion? Research showing that trait Honesty-Humility accounts for giving behavior suggests the former, whereas research showing that participants give money to a computer might suggest the latter. In three preregistered, well-powered studies, we examined the relation of Honesty-Humility with behavior in the Dictator Game (Study 1, N = 468) and Public Goods Game (Studies 2 and 3, each N = 313), while participants interacted either with humans (“social game”) or with a computer (“non-social game”). We found that (a) decisions in the non-social game predicted decisions in the social game, supporting the confusion hypothesis; (b) the effect of Honesty-Humility differed within and between games; and (b) participants who gave money to the computer reported acting as if they were playing with humans. Overall, the studies suggest that both prosocial preferences and confusion underlie giving behavior.

scholarly journals Sharing money with humans versus computers: On Honesty-Humility and (non-)social preferences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yngwie Asbjørn Nielsen ◽  
Isabel Thielmann ◽  
Ingo Zettler ◽  
Stefan Pfattheicher
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Economic Games ◽  
Social Game ◽  
The Social ◽  
As If

Does giving behavior in economic games reflect true prosocial preferences or is it due to confusion? Research showing that trait Honesty-Humility accounts for giving behavior suggests the former, whereas research showing that participants give money to a computer might suggest the latter. In three preregistered, well-powered studies, we examined the relation of Honesty-Humility with behavior in the Dictator Game (Study 1, N = 468) and Public Goods Game (Studies 2 and 3, each N = 313), while participants interacted either with humans (“social game”) or with a computer (“non-social game”). We found that (1) decisions in the non-social game predicted decisions in the social game, supporting the confusion hypothesis; (2) the effect of Honesty-Humility differed within and between games; and (3) participants who gave money to the computer reported acting as if they were playing with humans. Overall, the studies suggest that both prosocial preferences and confusion underlie giving behavior.

scholarly journals Methodological Aspects of Social Preferences Research in the Context of Solving Social Dilemmas

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (13) ◽  
pp. 33-37
Author(s):  
Alla Kovalenko ◽  
◽  
Albina Holovina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Altruistic Behavior ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Trust And Reciprocity

The article presents an analysis of the main methodological principles and schemes of social preferences experimental research, which are determined as a fundamental concept to understanding the behavior of decision-makers in the process of resolving social dilemmas. The models presented in the article include an analysis of the factors that determine social preferences. Among them are the factors of trust, reliability, reciprocity, rejection of inequality, unconditional altruism and competitive advantage. The article provides a description of the strengths and weaknesses of the classic methods for studying social preferences, which usually take the form of ultimatum game, dictator game, trust game and public goods game. The study reveals the importance of the Nash equilibrium as a way to interpret human behavior in resource allocation during the game. Analysis of numerous literary sources shows that the ultimatum game is a classic scheme for studying the altruistic behavior of people. The submission of a proposal and its acceptance is an example of Nash's ideal equilibrium. Deviation from this balance can be interpreted as altruism. In turn, the trust game is a classic scheme for studying the reciprocity and prosocial orientation. If the behavior of players deviates from Nash's equilibrium, it is interpreted as being caused by trust and reciprocity. The dictator game is a classic scheme for studying the rejection of inequality. The subject's behavior can be interpreted as a rejection of inequality or altruism, but not as a rejection of risk, as the offer of Player 1 is mandatory for Player 2. Public goods game is a classic scheme for studying the competitive orientation. Nash's ideal balance in this form of play is to do nothing for public consumption, but deviating from this rule is interpreted as altruistic behavior that is the opposite of competitive orientation. As a result, the design of psychological research is presented, which most accurately typologies the social preferences of the subjects and can contribute to the creation of a representative model of decision-making process.

scholarly journals Hierarchy, power, and strategies to promote cooperation in social dilemmas [pre-print]

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Molho ◽  
Daniel Balliet ◽  
Junhui Wu
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Power Asymmetry ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
Cooperative Behaviors

Previous research on cooperation has primarily focused on egalitarian interactions, overlooking a fundamental feature of social life: hierarchy and power asymmetry. While recent accounts posit that hierarchies can reduce within-group conflict, individuals who possess high rank or power tend to show less cooperation. Then how is cooperation achieved within groups that contain power asymmetries? To address this question, the present research examines how relative power affects cooperation and strategies, such as punishment and gossip, to promote cooperation in social dilemmas. In two studies involving online real-time interactions in dyads (N = 246) and four-person groups (N = 371), we manipulate power by varying individuals’ ability to distribute resources in a dictator game, and measure punishment, gossip, and cooperative behaviors in a multi-round public goods game. Findings largely replicate previous research showing that punishment and gossip opportunities increase contributions to public goods in four-person groups. However, we find no support for the hypotheses that power directly affects cooperation or the use of punishment and gossip to promote cooperation. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the influence of hierarchy and power on cooperation within dyads and groups.

The role of memory in human strategy updating in optional public goods game

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 043128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaojin Xu ◽  
Ruyu Li ◽  
Lianzhong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Goods Game

scholarly journals Heterogeneous groups cooperate in public good problems despite normative disagreements about individual contribution levels

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper Otten ◽  
Vincent Buskens ◽  
Wojtek Przepiorka ◽  
Naomi Ellemers
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Individual Contribution ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Homogeneous Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
Heterogeneous Groups ◽  
Good Provision ◽  
Good Individual

Abstract Norms can promote human cooperation to provide public goods. Yet, the potential of norms to promote cooperation may be limited to homogeneous groups in which all members benefit equally from the public good. Individual heterogeneity in the benefits of public good provision is commonly conjectured to bring about normative disagreements that harm cooperation. However, the role of these normative disagreements remains unclear because they are rarely directly measured or manipulated. In a laboratory experiment, we first measure participants’ views on the appropriate way to contribute to a public good with heterogeneous returns. We then use this information to sort people into groups that either agree or disagree on these views, thereby manipulating group-level disagreement on normative views. Participants subsequently make several incentivized contribution decisions in a public goods game with peer punishment. We find that although there are considerable disagreements about individual contribution levels in heterogeneous groups, these disagreements do not impede cooperation. While cooperation is maintained because low contributors are punished, participants do not use punishment to impose their normative views on others. The contribution levels at which groups cooperate strongly relate to the average normative views of these groups.

scholarly journals Role of Investment Heterogeneity in the Cooperation on Spatial Public Goods Game

PLoS ONE ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. e91012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wu-Jie Yuan ◽  
Cheng-Yi Xia
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Goods Game

scholarly journals Neural mechanisms of social decision-making in the primate amygdala

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (52) ◽  
pp. 16012-16017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve W. C. Chang ◽  
Nicholas A. Fagan ◽  
Koji Toda ◽  
Amanda V. Utevsky ◽  
John M. Pearson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Basolateral Amygdala ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Social Decisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Social Decision Making

Social decisions require evaluation of costs and benefits to oneself and others. Long associated with emotion and vigilance, the amygdala has recently been implicated in both decision-making and social behavior. The amygdala signals reward and punishment, as well as facial expressions and the gaze of others. Amygdala damage impairs social interactions, and the social neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) influences human social decisions, in part, by altering amygdala function. Here we show in monkeys playing a modified dictator game, in which one individual can donate or withhold rewards from another, that basolateral amygdala (BLA) neurons signaled social preferences both across trials and across days. BLA neurons mirrored the value of rewards delivered to self and others when monkeys were free to choose but not when the computer made choices for them. We also found that focal infusion of OT unilaterally into BLA weakly but significantly increased both the frequency of prosocial decisions and attention to recipients for context-specific prosocial decisions, endorsing the hypothesis that OT regulates social behavior, in part, via amygdala neuromodulation. Our findings demonstrate both neurophysiological and neuroendocrinological connections between primate amygdala and social decisions.

scholarly journals The study on the role of dedicators on promoting cooperation in public goods game

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0257475
Author(s):  
Zhenghong Wu ◽  
Huan Huang ◽  
Qinghu Liao
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Care Group ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Emotional Effect ◽  
Spring Festival ◽  
Willingness To Donate ◽  
Negative Effect

In daily life, some people are always seen dedicating available resources to support collective activities. In this paper, we call these people who care group goals more than individual goals dedicators. Inspired by this phenomenon, we studied the role of dedicators on the evolution of cooperation in public goods game (PGG) based on a Chinese Folk Spring Festival Gala. Three types of agents were introduced into our PGG model including cooperators, defectors and dedicators. Dedicators tried to donate when the Gala was short of funds. Cooperators and defectors imitated the strategy of the highest-payoff neighbor based on the rational mechanism. And their imitating probability was modified on account of the emotional mechanism for positive effect of the dedicator’s donating behavior and negative effect of continuous poor performance. Through numerical simulations, we found that the existence of dedicators can indeed promote cooperation in PGG. It should be noted that dedicators’ willingness to donate was more important than their donation quantity in facilitating cooperation. And the stronger the emotional effect intensity of dedicators’ donating behavior was, the better. So, the selfless dedication of participants should be praised to promote cooperation by improving their emotional effect intensity. Last but not least, a reasonable activity budget was needed to sustain the highest level of cooperation.

Ideology and social cognition

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
Jordan Mansell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Social Behaviors ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Cognitive Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Members

AbstractResearch links liberal and conservative ideological orientations with variation on psychological and cognitive characteristics that are important for perceptual processes and decision-making. This study investigates whether this variation can impact the social behaviors of liberals and conservatives. A sample of subjects (n = 1,245) participated in a modified public goods game in which an intragroup inequality was introduced to observe the effect on individuals’ tendency toward self-interested versus prosocial behavior. Overall, the contributions of neither liberal- nor conservative-oriented individuals were affected by conditions of a general intragroup inequality. However, in response to the knowledge that group members voted to redress the inequality, levels of contribution among liberals significantly increased in comparison to the control. This was not true for conservatives. The results provide evidence that differences in ideological orientation are associated with individual differences in social cognition.

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