Reciprocity With Unequal Payoffs: Cooperative and Uncooperative Interactions Affect Disadvantageous Inequity Aversion

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Carla Jordão Suarez¹  Marcelo Frota Benvenuti¹  Kalliu Carvalho Couto³  José Oliveira Siqueira¹  Josele Abreu-Rodrigues⁴  Karen M. Lionello-DeNolf⁵  Ingunn Sandaker³ 

[1] Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo;National Institute of Science and Technology about Cognition;Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Behavioural Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University;Department of Basic Psychological Processes, University of Brasília;Department of Psychology, Assumption University, United States

关键词: inequity aversion;    reciprocity;    cooperation;    learning;    points vs;    money;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.628425

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Cooperation among unrelated individuals can evolve through reciprocity. Reciprocal cooperation is the process in which lasting social interactions provide the opportunity to learn about others' behavior, and to further predict the outcome of future encounters. Lasting social interactions may also decrease aversion to unequal distribution of gains – when individuals accept inequity payoffs knowing about the possibility of future encounters. Thus, reciprocal cooperation and aversion to inequity can be complementary phenomena. The present study investigated the effects of cooperative and uncooperative interactions on participants' aversion to disadvantageous inequity. Participants played an experimental task in the presence of a confederate who acted as a second participant. In reality, the participant interacted with a computer programed to make cooperative and uncooperative choices. After interacting with a cooperative or uncooperative computer, participants chose between blue cards to produce larger gains to the computer and smaller for him/her or green cards to produce equal and smaller gains for both. Results confirmed our first hypothesis that uncooperative interactions would produce aversion to disadvantageous inequity. Lastly, half of the participants were informed that points received during the experiment could be later exchanged for money, and half were not. Results indicated that information about monetary outcomes did not affect aversion to inequity, contradicting our second hypothesis. We discuss these results in the light of theories of reciprocal cooperation, inequity aversion, and conformity.

【 授权许可】

CC BY