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Published on: September 19, 2012
Risk is relative: risk aversion yields cooperation rather than defection in cooperation-friendly environments
Andreas Glöckner1, Benjamin E Hilbig
1Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Kurt-Schumacher-Str. 10, D-53113 Bonn, Germany. gloeckner@coll.mpg.de
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|February 22, 2012
Summary
Risk aversion promotes cooperation in friendly environments, but not unfriendly ones. Personality traits like neuroticism and extraversion also interact with the environment to influence cooperation in repeated prisoner's dilemma games.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Economics
- Social Psychology
- Game Theory
Background:
- Previous research on risk aversion and cooperation in repeated prisoner's dilemma games yielded inconclusive results.
- A potential explanation for mixed findings is the interaction between individual personality traits and the specific environmental context.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the hypothesis that environmental context moderates the relationship between risk aversion and cooperation.
- To explore similar person-situation interactions for other personality traits, specifically neuroticism and extraversion.
Main Methods:
- Conducted two experiments examining cooperation levels in different environmental settings.
- Reanalyzed existing data from a study by Fudenberg, Rand, and Dreber (2012) on cooperation in repeated prisoner's dilemma games.
- Assessed dispositional risk aversion, neuroticism, and extraversion in participants.
Main Results:
- Cooperation increased with dispositional risk aversion in cooperation-friendly environments.
- This positive relationship between risk aversion and cooperation was not observed in cooperation-unfriendly environments.
- Similar person-situation interaction effects were found for neuroticism and extraversion, influencing cooperation behavior.
Conclusions:
- Environmental context is a critical moderator of the relationship between risk aversion and cooperation.
- Personality traits interact with situational factors to shape cooperative behavior in strategic interactions.
- Findings challenge the assumption of a direct, universal link between risk aversion and cooperation, highlighting the importance of context.
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