Remembering the bad ones: Does the source memory advantage for cheaters influence our later actions positively?

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Previous research indicates that emotionally incongruent information is better remembered.
• The influence of this memory enhancement on subsequent actions remains largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether memory for social expectations impacts later economic decisions.
• To examine the role of facial trustworthiness and behavioral history in cooperation.

Main Methods:

• Participants engaged in an investment game with partners whose facial trustworthiness was manipulated.
• Participants later played a second investment game against familiar and new opponents.
• Source memory and recognition memory were analyzed in relation to cooperation.

Main Results:

• Cooperation in the second game was influenced by past opponent behavior and facial trustworthiness.
• No memory differences were found between cheaters and cooperators; however, source guessing correlated with cooperation.
• Experiment 2 showed a positive correlation between old-new recognition and subsequent cooperation.

Conclusions:

• Memory and guessing processes significantly influence economic decisions and cooperation.
• Facial trustworthiness acts as a strong social expectation that affects economic choices.
• Behavioral history and perceived trustworthiness interact to shape social economic behavior.