One-shot Anonymous Interactions Research Articles

"Signaling when no one is watching: A reputation heuristics account of outrage and punishment In one-shot anonymous interactions": Correction to Jordan and Rand (2019).

Reports an error in "Signaling when no one is watching: A reputation heuristics account of outrage and punishment in one-shot anonymous interactions" by Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Advanced Online Publication, Apr 15, 2019, np). In the article, a printer error did not enable the authors to correct various errors before publication. Tables 1 and 2 have been corrected. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2019-20336-001.) Moralistic punishment can confer reputation benefits by signaling trustworthiness to observers. However, why do people punish even when nobody is watching? We argue that people often rely on the heuristic that reputation is typically at stake, such that reputation concerns can shape moralistic outrage and punishment even in one-shot anonymous interactions. We then support this account using data from Amazon Mechanical Turk. In anonymous experiments, subjects (total n = 8,440) report more outrage in response to others' selfishness when they cannot signal their trustworthiness through direct prosociality (sharing with a third party)-such that if the interaction were not anonymous, punishment would have greater signaling value. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggest that sharing opportunities reduce outrage by influencing reputation concerns. Additionally, anonymous experiments measuring costly punishment (total n = 6,076) show the same pattern: subjects punish more when sharing is not possible. Moreover, and importantly, moderation analyses provide some evidence that sharing opportunities do not merely reduce outrage and punishment by inducing empathy toward selfishness or hypocrisy aversion among non-sharers. Finally, we support the specific role of heuristics by investigating individual differences in deliberateness. Less deliberative individuals (who typically rely more on heuristics) are more sensitive to sharing opportunities in our anonymous punishment experiments, but, critically, not in punishment experiments where reputation is at stake (total n = 3,422); and not in our anonymous outrage experiments (where condemning is costless). Together, our results suggest that when nobody is watching, reputation cues nonetheless can shape outrage and-among individuals who rely on heuristics-costly punishment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Signaling when no one is watching: A reputation heuristics account of outrage and punishment in one-shot anonymous interactions.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on Jul 22 2019 (see record 2019-43753-001). In the article, a printer error did not enable the authors to correct various errors before publication. Tables 1 and 2 have been corrected. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Moralistic punishment can confer reputation benefits by signaling trustworthiness to observers. However, why do people punish even when nobody is watching? We argue that people often rely on the heuristic that reputation is typically at stake, such that reputation concerns can shape moralistic outrage and punishment even in one-shot anonymous interactions. We then support this account using data from Amazon Mechanical Turk. In anonymous experiments, subjects (total n = 8,440) report more outrage in response to others' selfishness when they cannot signal their trustworthiness through direct prosociality (sharing with a third party)-such that if the interaction were not anonymous, punishment would have greater signaling value. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggest that sharing opportunities reduce outrage by influencing reputation concerns. Additionally, anonymous experiments measuring costly punishment (total n = 6,076) show the same pattern: subjects punish more when sharing is not possible. Moreover, and importantly, moderation analyses provide some evidence that sharing opportunities do not merely reduce outrage and punishment by inducing empathy toward selfishness or hypocrisy aversion among non-sharers. Finally, we support the specific role of heuristics by investigating individual differences in deliberateness. Less deliberative individuals (who typically rely more on heuristics) are more sensitive to sharing opportunities in our anonymous punishment experiments, but, critically, not in punishment experiments where reputation is at stake (total n = 3,422); and not in our anonymous outrage experiments (where condemning is costless). Together, our results suggest that when nobody is watching, reputation cues nonetheless can shape outrage and-among individuals who rely on heuristics-costly punishment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Signaling When No One Is Watching: A Reputation Heuristics Account of Outrage and Punishment In One-Shot Anonymous Interactions

Supplemental Material for Signaling When No One Is Watching: A Reputation Heuristics Account of Outrage and Punishment In One-Shot Anonymous Interactions

The Drive to Appear Trustworthy Shapes Punishment and Moral Outrage in One-Shot Anonymous Interactions

Moralistic punishment can confer reputation benefits by signaling trustworthiness to observers. But why do people punish even when nobody is watching? We argue that people often rely on the heuristic that reputation is typically at stake, such that reputation concerns can shape moralistic outrage and punishment even in one-shot anonymous interactions. We then support this account using data from Amazon Mechanical Turk. In anonymous experiments, subjects (total n = 8440) report more outrage in response to others’ selfishness when they cannot signal their trustworthiness through direct prosociality (sharing with a third party)—such that if the interaction was not anonymous, punishment would have greater signaling value. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggest that sharing opportunities reduce outrage via reputation concerns. Additionally, anonymous experiments measuring costly punishment (total n = 6076) show the same pattern: subjects punish more when sharing is not possible. And importantly, moderation analyses provide some evidence that sharing opportunities do not merely influence outrage and punishment by inducing empathy towards selfishness or hypocrisy aversion among non-sharers. Finally, we support the specific role of heuristics by investigating individual differences in deliberateness. Less deliberative individuals (who typically rely more on heuristics) are more sensitive to sharing opportunities in our anonymous punishment experiments, but, critically, not in punishment experiments where reputation is at stake (total n = 3422); and not in our anonymous outrage experiments (where condemning is costless). Together, our results suggest that when nobody is watching, reputation cues nonetheless can shape outrage and—among individuals who rely on heuristics—costly punishment.

Rethinking spontaneous giving: Extreme time pressure and ego-depletion favor self-regarding reactions.

Previous experimental studies suggest that cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is, on average, spontaneous, rather than calculative. To explain this finding, it has been proposed that people internalize cooperative heuristics in their everyday life and bring them as intuitive strategies in new and atypical situations. Yet, these studies have important limitations, as they promote intuitive responses using weak time pressure or conceptual priming of intuition. Since these manipulations do not deplete participants’ ability to reason completely, it remains unclear whether cooperative heuristics are really automatic or they emerge after a small, but positive, amount of deliberation. Consistent with the latter hypothesis, we report two experiments demonstrating that spontaneous reactions in one-shot anonymous interactions tend to be egoistic. In doing so, our findings shed further light on the cognitive underpinnings of cooperation, as they suggest that cooperation in one-shot interactions is not automatic, but appears only at later stages of reasoning.

Heuristics guide the implementation of social preferences in one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma experiments.

Cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is a widely documented aspect of human behaviour. Here we shed light on the motivations behind this behaviour by experimentally exploring cooperation in a one-shot continuous-strategy Prisoner's Dilemma (i.e. one-shot two-player Public Goods Game). We examine the distribution of cooperation amounts, and how that distribution varies based on the benefit-to-cost ratio of cooperation (b/c). Interestingly, we find a trimodal distribution at all b/c values investigated. Increasing b/c decreases the fraction of participants engaging in zero cooperation and increases the fraction engaging in maximal cooperation, suggesting a role for efficiency concerns. However, a substantial fraction of participants consistently engage in 50% cooperation regardless of b/c. The presence of these persistent 50% cooperators is surprising, and not easily explained by standard models of social preferences. We present evidence that this behaviour is a result of social preferences guided by simple decision heuristics, rather than the rational examination of payoffs assumed by most social preference models. We also find a strong correlation between play in the Prisoner's Dilemma and in a subsequent Dictator Game, confirming previous findings suggesting a common prosocial motivation underlying altruism and cooperation.

Direct reciprocity under uncertainty does not explain one-shot cooperation, but demonstrates the benefits of a norm psychology

Humans in many societies cooperate in economic experiments at much higher levels than would be expected if their goal was maximizing economic returns, even when their interactions are anonymous and one-shot. This is a puzzle because paying a cost to benefit another in one-shot interactions gives no direct or indirect benefits to the cooperator. This paper explores the logic of two competing evolutionary hypotheses to explain this behavior. The ``norm psychology'' hypothesis holds that a player's choice of strategy reflects socially-learned cultural norms. Its premise is that over the course of human evolutionary history, cultural norms varied considerably across human societies, and through a process of gene-culture co-evolution, humans evolved mechanisms to learn and adopt the norms that are successful in their particular society. The ``mismatch'' hypothesis holds that pro-social preferences evolved genetically in our hunter–gatherer past where one-shot anonymous interactions were rare and these preferences are misapplied in modern laboratory settings. I compare these hypotheses by adopting a well-known model of the mismatch hypothesis and show that selection for one-shot cooperation in the model is an artifact of agents being confined to only two strategies: Tit-for-Tat and Always Defect. Allowing for repentant and forgiving strategies reverses selection away from one-shot cooperation under all environmental parameters. Direct reciprocity does not necessarily lead to cooperation, but instead generates many different normative equilibria depending on a group's idiosyncratic evolutionary history. Therefore, an agent whose behavior is evoked solely from non-cultural environmental cues will be disadvantaged relative to an agent who learns the locally successful norms. Cooperation in one-shot laboratory experiments is thus more easily explained as the result of a psychology evolved for learning social norms than as a genetic mismatch.

Social heuristics shape intuitive cooperation.

Cooperation is central to human societies. Yet relatively little is known about the cognitive underpinnings of cooperative decision making. Does cooperation require deliberate self-restraint? Or is spontaneous prosociality reined in by calculating self-interest? Here we present a theory of why (and for whom) intuition favors cooperation: cooperation is typically advantageous in everyday life, leading to the formation of generalized cooperative intuitions. Deliberation, by contrast, adjusts behaviour towards the optimum for a given situation. Thus, in one-shot anonymous interactions where selfishness is optimal, intuitive responses tend to be more cooperative than deliberative responses. We test this 'social heuristics hypothesis' by aggregating across every cooperation experiment using time pressure that we conducted over a 2-year period (15 studies and 6,910 decisions), as well as performing a novel time pressure experiment. Doing so demonstrates a positive average effect of time pressure on cooperation. We also find substantial variation in this effect, and show that this variation is partly explained by previous experience with one-shot lab experiments.

Cooperation Increases with the Benefit-to-Cost Ratio in One-Shot Prisoner's Dilemma Experiments

Cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is a widely documented aspect of human behaviour. Here we shed light on the motivations behind this behaviour by experimentally exploring cooperation in a one-shot continuous-strategy Prisoner’s Dilemma (i.e. one-shot two-player Public Goods Game). We examine the distribution of cooperation amounts, and how that distribution varies based on the benefit-to-cost ratio of cooperation (b/c). Interestingly, we find a trimodal distribution at all b/c values investigated. Increasing b/c decreases the fraction of participants engaging in zero cooperation and increases the fraction engaging in maximal cooperation, suggesting a role for efficiency concerns. However, a substantial fraction of participants consistently engage in 50% cooperation regardless of b/c. The presence of these persistent 50% cooperators is surprising, and not easily explained by standard models of social preferences. We present evidence that this behaviour is a result of social preferences guided by simple decision heuristics, rather than the rational examination of payoffs assumed by most social preference models. We also find a strong correlation between play in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and in a subsequent Dictator Game, confirming previous findings suggesting a common prosocial motivation underlying altruism and cooperation.

Information, irrationality, and the evolution of trust

Trust is a central component of social and economic interactions among humans. While rational self-interest dictates that “investors” should not be trusting and “trustees” should not be trustworthy in one-shot anonymous interactions, behavioral experiments with the “trust game” have found that people are both. Here we show how an evolutionary framework can explain this seemingly irrational, altruistic behavior. When individuals’ strategies evolve in a context in which (1) investors sometimes have knowledge about trustees before transactions occur and (2) trustees compete with each other for access to investors, natural selection can favor both trust and trustworthiness, even in the subset of interactions in which individuals interact anonymously. We investigate the effects of investors having “fuzzy minds” and making irrationally large demands, finding that both improve outcomes for investors but are not evolutionarily stable. Furthermore, we often find oscillations in trust and trustworthiness instead of convergence to a socially optimal stable equilibrium, with increasing trustworthiness preceeding trust in these cycles. Finally, we show how “partner choice,” or competition among trustees in small group settings, can lead to arbitrarily equitable distributions of the game's proceeds. To complement our theoretical analysis, we performed a novel behavioral experiment with a modified version of the trust game. Our evolutionary framework provides an ultimate mechanism—not just a proximate psychological explanation—for the emergence of trusting behavior and can explain why trust and trustworthiness are sometimes stable and other times unstable.

Strategic Self-Interest Motivates Seemingly 'Fair' Offers in the Ultimatum Game

Behavioral and economic analysis of law fundamentally depends on understanding what motivates individual actors. While it is often assumed that people care only about maximizing their own monetary payoff, recent experimental work has challenged this assumption. A canonical example involves experiments using the “Ultimatum Game”, which consistently find much higher rates of equitable bargaining behavior than would be expected based on rational self-interest. It has been argued that this prevalence of equitable offers in one-shot anonymous interactions is at least partially explained by proposers having a preference for fair outcomes. We, however, argue that equitable offers in the Ultimatum Game can be entirely explained by the strategic reasoning of rational self-interested proposers. We introduce a modified version of the game in which prosocial motivations related to fairness are completely removed. In our experiment, the only reason to make a non-zero offer is the strategic desire to avoid one’s proposal being rejected by one’s counterparty. We find no significant difference in offers between this design and a standard ultimatum game. These results indicate that self-interest alone is sufficient to explain the observed equitable offers, and call into question the sentiment that innate generosity can be even partially relied upon as a motivator in the context of inherently adversarial bargaining interactions.

Information, Irrationality and the Evolution of Trust

Trust is a central component of social and economic interactions among humans. While rational self-interest dictates that should not be trusting and should not be trustworthy in one-shot anonymous interactions, behavioral experiments with the game have found that people are both. Here we show how an evolutionary framework can explain this seemingly irrational, altruistic behavior. When individuals' strategies evolve in a context in which (1) investors sometimes have knowledge about trustees before transactions occur and (2) trustees compete with each other for access to investors, natural selection can favor both trust and trustworthiness, even in the subset of interactions in which individuals interact anonymously. We investigate the e ffects of investors having \fuzzy minds and making irrationally large demands, finding that both improve outcomes for investors but are not evolutionarily stable. Furthermore, we often fi nd oscillations in trust and trustworthiness instead of convergence to a socially optimal stable equilibrium, with increasing trustworthiness preceding trust in these cycles. Finally, we show how partner choice, or competition among trustees in small group settings, can lead to arbitrarily equitable distributions of the game's proceeds. To complement our theoretical analysis, we performed a novel behavioral experiment with a modifi ed version of the trust game. Our evolutionary framework provides an ultimate mechanism - not just a proximate psychological explanation - for the emergence of trusting behavior and can explain why trust and trustworthiness are sometimes stable and other times unstable.