Behavioral similarity, confederate strategy, and sex composition of dyad as determinants of interpersonal judgments and behavior in the prisoner's dilemma game

Abstract

The study was designed to test three distinct theoretical models relating player's attitudes toward a confederate in the prisoner's dilemma game: a reinforcing outcome model, a cultural norm model, and a social comparison model. A secondary concern of the study was to determine if player's sex, confederate's sex, and the confederate's strategy interactively influence player's choice behavior. Forty-eight male and forty-eight female subjects played 100 trials of the prisoner's dilemma game with a confederate who played either a 74% cooperative or 74% competitive predetermined strategy and then filled out the Interpersonal Judgment Scale rating the confederate. Behaviorally similar confederates received more positive evaluations than dissimilar confederates supporting the social comparison hypothesis. Further, the strategy of the confederate did not influence choice behavior in mixed-sex dyads, suggesting that sex roles may inhibit behaviorally based male-female interaction. The generality of previous gaming research which has dealt almost exclusively with same-sex dyads is called into question.