Moral reasoning and moral competence as predictors of cooperative behavior in a social dilemma

Abstract

The level of moral development may be crucial to understand behavior when people have to choose between prioritizing individual gains or pursuing general social benefits. This study evaluated whether two different psychological constructs, moral reasoning and moral competence, are associated with cooperative behavior in the context of the prisoner's dilemma game, a two-person social dilemma where individuals choose between cooperation or defection. One hundred and eighty-nine Mexican university students completed the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2; measuring moral reasoning) and the Moral Competence Test (MCT) and played an online version of the prisoner’s dilemma game, once against each participant in a group of 6–10 players. Our results indicate that cooperative behavior is strongly affected by the outcomes in previous rounds: Except when both participants cooperated, the probability of cooperation with other participants in subsequent rounds decreased. Both the DIT-2 and MCT independently moderated this effect of previous experiences, particularly in the case of sucker-outcomes. Individuals with high scores on both tests were not affected when in previous rounds the other player defected while they cooperated. Our findings suggest that more sophisticated moral reasoning and moral competence promote the maintenance of cooperative behaviors despite facing adverse situations.

Moral judgement and decision-making: theoretical predictions and null results

“…To study how trust inference of moral decision-makers is moderated by several contextual factors , Bostyn et al 1 used a behavioral game theory task, the trust game, where participants endow some of their money to a trustee in the hope that they will reciprocate, and the amount indicates their level of trust. Other studies in this Collection used monetary transactions as a proxy for cooperation and trust, using trust games 4 , the common-goods game 5,6 , decisions under risk 7 , variations of the dictator game where participants split money with others 8,9 and paradigms in which participants gain money from harm to others 10,11 . The use of such different approaches in the study of the same topic is important, as it allows evidence to converge across different studies, each with its own weaknesses and strengths.…”