Does Cooperation in the Laboratory Reflect the Operation of A Broad Trait?

Abstract

The Dictator Game, a face valid measure of altruism, and the Trust Game, a face valid measure of trust and trustworthiness, are among the most widely used behavioural measures in human cooperation research. Researchers have observed considerable covariation among these and other economic games, leading them to assert that there exists a general human propensity to cooperate that varies in strength across individuals and manifests itself across a variety of social settings. To formalize this hypothesis, we created an S-1 bifactor model using 276 participants' Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions. The general factor had significant, moderate associations with self-reported and peer-reported altruism, trust, and trustworthiness. Thus, the positive covariation among economic games is not reducible to the games' shared situational features. Two hundred participants returned for a second session. The general factor based on Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions from this session did not significantly predict self-reported and peer-reported cooperation, suggesting that experience with economic games causes them to measure different traits from those that are reflected in self-assessments and peer-assessments of cooperativeness.

Environmental adversity is associated with lower investment in collective actions

“…Second, these studies usually only use one economic game, which may lower their generalizability [44]. In accordance with this idea, McAuliffe et al [45] found that single economic games do not correlate with real-life cooperation, but a general factor based on several economic games does. Finally, there is increasing evidence that economic games lack ecological validity [46].…”

Do Perceiver Effects in Interpersonal Perception Predict Cooperation in Social Dilemmas?

“…A myriad of traits have been shown to be related to social dilemma choices including rather narrow constructs such as altruism (e.g., Haesevoets et al, 2018;McAuliffe et al, 2019), social value orientation (e.g., Balliet, Parks, & Joireman, 2009), and the dark triad (e.g., Bereczkei & Czibor, 2014;Campbell, Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005;Mokros et al, 2008). The list also includes broader constructs such as agreeableness (e.g., Volk, Thöni, & Ruigrok, 2011) from the Big Five model (Goldberg, 1990) and honesty-humility (e.g., Hilbig, Zettler, & Heydasch, 2012) from the HEXACO model (Lee & Ashton, 2004).…”

Editorial: A Brief Wish List for Personality Research

“…Other papers focused on the structure of different aspects of personality (e.g. human values, Coelho, Hanel, Johansen, & Maio, ; cooperative behaviour in economic games, McAuliffe, Forster, Pedersen, & McCullough, ; and narcissism, Rogoza, Cieciuch, Strus, & Baran, ), self‐regulatory (e.g. Hennecke, Czikmantori, & Brandstätter, ), and biological (e.g.…”