Abstract
The present research investigates the role of intuitive mental processing on cooperation in experimental games involving structural inequality. Results from an experiment using conceptual priming to induce intuitive mental processing provide the first evidence that cooperation is promoted by intuition in an asymmetric context that distributes the gains from cooperation unequally among a group. Therefore, the results extend our understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of human cooperation by demonstrating the robustness of intuitive cooperation in games involving structural inequality regarding asymmetric gains from cooperation. Additionally, the results provide the first successful conceptual replication of the intuition-cooperation link using conceptual priming, therefore also contributing to the debate about the validity of previous research in other contexts. Taken together, the present research contributes to the literature on psychological and institutional mechanisms that promote cooperation.
Highlights
One of the most widely investigated phenomena in human social life is why and how cooperation can be sustained despite individual incentives to free-ride [1, 2]
The present research showed that intuitive mental processing—induced by conceptual priming —promotes cooperation even in a social dilemma that does not allocate the gains from cooperation among the participants
The present research was designed to fill that gap in the literature
Summary
One of the most widely investigated phenomena in human social life is why and how cooperation can be sustained despite individual incentives to free-ride [1, 2]. Research has identified many mechanisms that foster cooperation, among them direct and indirect reciprocity [3, 4], spatial and multilevel selection [5, 6] as well as kin selection [7]. While the general mechanism of how this happens is debated In this respect, ample amount of research supports the hypothesis that intuition promotes cooperation and reciprocity, implicating that cooperation is a “system 1” process. Theoretically grounded in dual-process theories of judgment and decision-making
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