The effect of early cooperation on the escalation of conflict

Abstract

Subjects played an experimental game in which they received a hostile act of varying magnitude either at the start of interaction or after a period of cooperation. The latter condition resulted in greater retaliation, a conflict of greater magnitude, and a conflict of longer duration. This was true regardless of the size of the hostile act. When the hostile act was small, prior cooperation reduced the retaliation somewhat if the confederate was regarded as having been helpful at the start. The results were interpreted in terms of theories of expectancy disconfirmation and social exchange. Subjects scoring high on the Mach scale responded with a greater immediate retaliation, while subjects with low tolerance for ambiguity extended the conflict longer. Neither personality measure correlated with more general measures of aggressive and competitive behavior. It was proposed that more specific indices be substituted for the overall measure of competitive behavior that is often used in gaming research.