Do Individualists and Collectivists Cooperate Differently?

Research in social science has shown the importance of individualism and collectivism (I/C) in human behavior. Individualists tend to see people in isolation, while collectivists are more prone to see people as interconnected members of groups, and this has consequences for behavior, governance, and economic outcomes. We examine the role of I/C on cooperation experimentally in infinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemmas (IRPD) played with in- and outgroup members. We predict that collectivists will be more cooperative, forgiving and defect less with in-group members than out-group members. Individualists are predicted to make similar strategic decisions for in- and out-group members. In an effort to causally affect the I/C scores of our subjects, as well as to strengthen in- and out-group connections, subjects completed a group-identity task prior to the I/C instrument and IRPD in the Strong Identity treatment. In our Weak Identity treatment, subjects completed a task on their own and were simply told they were assigned to groups. During the experiment, across supergames, subjects were randomly matched with in- and out-group partners. Findings reveal that our treatment effects are largely null. The only significant effect on strategic behavior was that larger defection payoffs led to more defection and less cooperation by subjects in all treatments. Key Words: Individualism, collectivism, cooperation, repeated games, strategy, experiments