Abstract
As decision-making research becomes more popular, the inclusion of personality traits has emerged as a focal point for an exhaustive analysis of human behaviour. In this study, we investigate the impact of psychopathic traits on cooperation in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game with emotional facial feedback. Firstly, we observed how receiving a facial feedback after each decision affected players with different psychopathic trait scores, and how being informed about the opponent’s identity influenced cooperative behaviour. Secondly, we analysed the strategies adopted by each player, and how these choices were correlated with their psychopathic traits. Although our results showed no effect of different emotional content in the feedback on cooperation, we observed more cooperative behaviours in those players who were told their opponent was another fellow human, compared to those who were told it was a computer. Moreover, fearless dominance had a very small but consistent negative effect on overall cooperation and on the tendency to maintain cooperative behaviours. We also found that players’ personality scores affected the strategies they chose to play throughout the game. Hence, our experiment adds complexity to the body of work investigating psychopathic traits and social interactions, considering not only the environment of facial feedback but also the role of deception in experimental games.
Highlights
Significant dysfunction in interpersonal relations is a hallmark of psychopathy
Emotional dysfunction has long been a defining characteristic[1], and while there is some debate as to whether there is any dysfunction of emotional recognition[8], the literature is fairly conclusive on a dysfunction in emotional reaction[9,10]
Results showed that high levels of psychopathy were significantly associated with reduced cooperation in the affective feedback version of the game, and positively associated with “CD” outcomes in both games (CD = player cooperates while the opponent defects)
Summary
Significant dysfunction in interpersonal relations is a hallmark of psychopathy It includes traits of callousness, guiltlessness, dishonesty and egocentricity[1]. These self-focused characteristics lend themselves to the significant behavioural differences seen in those high in psychopathic traits, especially in social situations. Several key studies have employed this game to investigate how psychopathic traits influence cooperation and defection. A later study, found a significant negative correlation between psychopathic traits and cooperation, only in male participants[3]. Results showed that high levels of psychopathy were significantly associated with reduced cooperation in the affective feedback version of the game, and positively associated with “CD” outcomes in both games (CD = player cooperates while the opponent defects). Our second hypothesis states that: deceived players will show more cooperative behaviour compared to non-deceived ones
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