More cooperation compensates for lower self-esteem in social dilemmas

Abstract

This research examined how self-esteem influences a person's strategy for social dilemmas where their own interests are in conflict with social interests. Using the Prisoner's Dilemma game, we designed three studies and observed robust results across the gain and loss domains, payoff amounts, and cooperation indexes. Participants who had low trait self-esteem (Study 1), participants who had state self-esteem after recall of failure (Study 2), and participants whose self-esteem was threatened (Study 3) adopted more cooperative strategies than those with high self-esteem. Choosing to cooperate helped participants with low state self-esteem improve their self-esteem, as compared to choosing to defect (Studies 2–3). By testing three underlying mechanisms, it was observed that lower levels of self-esteem induced a stronger motive to gain social interdependence, rather than social identity or social comparison (Study 3). These findings suggest a compensatory relationship between self-esteem and cooperation in social interaction. The implications for management, cooperation and collective action are discussed.