IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v614y2007i1p154-171.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Dual-Edged Sword: Empathy and Collective Action in the Prisoner's Dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • John A. Sautter

    (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

  • Levente Littvay

    (Central European University in Budapest, Hungary)

  • Brennen Bearnes

    (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Abstract

Researchers guided by evolutionary psychology have theorized that in an iterated prisoner's dilemma, reciprocal behavior is a product of evolutionary design, where individuals are guided by an innate sense of fairness for equal outcomes. Empathy as a prosocial emotion could be a key to understanding the psychological underpinnings of why and who tends to cooperate in a collective act. In short, why are some individuals more prone to participate in collective action? The authors test the hypothesis that a prosocial psychological disposition, stemming from self-reported empathy, will lead to group-oriented behavior in an iterated prisoner's dilemma game. Results suggest that an empathetic disposition does not lead to a higher rate of cooperation but interacts with environmental conditioning to produce either a highly cooperative or highly uncooperative personality type.

Suggested Citation

  • John A. Sautter & Levente Littvay & Brennen Bearnes, 2007. "A Dual-Edged Sword: Empathy and Collective Action in the Prisoner's Dilemma," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 614(1), pages 154-171, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:614:y:2007:i:1:p:154-171
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716207306360
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716207306360
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716207306360?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    2. Andreoni, James A & Miller, John H, 1993. "Rational Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(418), pages 570-585, May.
    3. McCabe, Kevin & Houser, Daniel & Ryan, Lee & Smith, Vernon & Trouard, Ted, 2001. "A Functional Imaging Study of Cooperation in Two-Person reciprocal Exchange," MPRA Paper 5172, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Christopher T. Dawes & James H. Fowler & Tim Johnson & Richard McElreath & Oleg Smirnov, 2007. "Egalitarian motives in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 446(7137), pages 794-796, April.
    5. John R. Hibbing & John R. Alford, 2004. "Accepting Authoritative Decisions: Humans as Wary Cooperators," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 62-76, January.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation," International Economic Association Series, in: L.-A. Gérard-Varet & S.-C. Kolm & J. Mercier Ythier (ed.), The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, chapter 7, pages 153-173, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abdullah, Alhassan & Mbamba, Crispin R. & Amponsah, Enoch B. & Frederico, Margarita & Cudjoe, Ebenezer & Bentum, Hajara & Emery, Clifton R., 2023. "Safeguarding the welfare of refugee children in Ghana: Perspectives of practitioners in refugee camps," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Donna Rowen & Michael Dietrich, 2007. "Are people ethical? An experimental approach," Working Papers 2007014, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2007.
    2. Hiroki Ozono & Yoshio Kamijo & Kazumi Shimizu, 2016. "Institutionalize Reciprocity to Overcome the Public Goods Provision Problem," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-11, June.
    3. Maggioni, Mario A. & Rossignoli, Domenico, 2023. "If it looks like a human and speaks like a human ... Communication and cooperation in strategic Human–Robot interactions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. van Winden, Frans A.A.M. & Stallen, Mirre & Ridderinkhof, Richard, 2008. "On the Nature, Modeling, and Neural Bases of Social Ties," CEPR Discussion Papers 6950, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Christian Thöni, 2014. "Inequality aversion and antisocial punishment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 529-545, April.
    6. Johnsen, Åshild A. & Kvaløy, Ola, 2021. "Conspiracy against the public - An experiment on collusion11“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publ," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    8. Filip Gesiarz & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Tali Sharot, 2020. "The motivational cost of inequality: Opportunity gaps reduce the willingness to work," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, September.
    9. Funk, Matt, 2008. "On the Problem of Sustainable Economic Development: A Theoretical Solution to this Prisoner's Dilemma," MPRA Paper 19025, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Jun 2008.
    10. Simon Cornée & David Masclet & Gervais Thenet, 2012. "Credit Relationships: Evidence from Experiments with Real Bankers," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(5), pages 957-980, August.
    11. Falk Armin & Kosfeld Michael, 2012. "It's all about Connections: Evidence on Network Formation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-36, September.
    12. Müller, Stephan, 2014. "The evolution of inequality aversion in a simplified game of life," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 219, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    13. Sadrieh, A., 2003. "Equity versus Warm Glow in Intergenerational Giving," Other publications TiSEM 89f19483-3c73-4838-854f-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Klaus Abbink & Jordi Brandts, 2016. "Political autonomy and independence: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(3), pages 461-496, July.
    15. van der Heijden, E.C.M. & Nelissen, J.H.M. & Potters, J.J.M. & Verbon, H.A.A., 1999. "Simple and Complex Gift Exchange in the Laboratory," Other publications TiSEM 7113ef4c-8507-44e5-b1e9-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Alan Sanfey, 2009. "Expectations and social decision-making: biasing effects of prior knowledge on Ultimatum responses," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 8(1), pages 93-107, June.
    17. Andreas Leibbrandt & Raúl López-Pérez, 2014. "Different carrots and different sticks: do we reward and punish differently than we approve and disapprove?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(1), pages 95-118, January.
    18. Armin Falk & Michael Kosfeld, "undated". "Distrust - The Hidden Cost of Control," IEW - Working Papers 193, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    19. Greiner, Ben & Vittoria Levati, M., 2005. "Indirect reciprocity in cyclical networks: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 711-731, October.
    20. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl, 2012. "An exploration of third and second party punishment in ten simple games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 753-766.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:614:y:2007:i:1:p:154-171. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.