The effect of attachment and environmental manipulations on cooperative behavior in the prisoner’s dilemma game

Taheri, Maliheh; Rotshtein, Pia; Beierholm, Ulrik

Abstract

Cooperation and competition are vital for human survival and for social progress. In this study we examine the impact of external (environmental) and internal (individual differences) factors on the tendency to cooperate or compete in social conflicts. To this end, 53 young adults played blocks of the repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma Game with each other or with a computer. The environmental context was manipulated across blocks, by introducing uncertainty, randomly losing or gaining money. Individual differences were assessed by participants’ attachment style. We found that participants cooperated more when randomly losing money compared to when randomly winning or in the neutral condition. Moreover, in a negative uncertain environment, individuals with higher anxious and avoidant attachment styles cooperated less. The above effects were only observed when playing against a human and not a computer. Overall, the findings highlight the dependency of cooperative behavior on the context as driven by external and internal factors.

Citation

Taheri, M., Rotshtein, P., & Beierholm, U. (2018). The effect of attachment and environmental manipulations on cooperative behavior in the prisoner’s dilemma game. PLoS ONE, 13(11), Article e0205730. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205730

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 1, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Nov 12, 2018
• Publication Date: Nov 12, 2018
• Deposit Date: Nov 13, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 13, 2018
• Journal: PLoS ONE
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 11
• Article Number: e0205730
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205730
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1313624