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

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.