Facing a Dilemma: Cooperative Behavior and Beauty

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract This paper investigates the influence of physical attractiveness on cooperative behavior. We survey data from 211 episodes of a television game show and combine it with independent facial attractiveness ratings of the show's contestants. The final of the show represents a simultaneous one-shot modified prisoner's dilemma. Our results show that facially attractive contestants provoke cooperative behavior from their counterparts, but attractive contestants themselves do not behave differently from unattractive ones. This preferential treatment or "beauty premium" rewards attractive contestants with substantially higher monetary gains of up to £2 153. This finding applies to both sexes. But, the attractiveness effect is limited to mixed-gender interactions. Contestants are only more cooperative when facing an attractive fellow player of the opposite sex. Attractiveness also has no effect in group-decisions made by the contestants prior to the prisoner's dilemma. Therefore people seem to show a preference to cooperate with someone towards whom they are personally attracted; and this preference reaches full effect when people lack other information on which to base their decision. Terms of use: Documents in

Implicit effects of speaker accents and vocally-expressed confidence on decisions to trust.

“…For example, attractive individuals experience better outcomes than less attractive individuals in economic games and other interaction contexts, such as negotiations and attempts to persuade others. This has been interpreted in terms of higher attractiveness eliciting expectations of other positive social qualities even before the interaction has occurred, which, in turn, increases trust in observers (Darai & Grätz, 2012; Davies, Goetz, & Shackelford, 2008; Mulford, Orbell, Shatto, & Stockard, 1998; Wilson & Eckel, 2006). Other studies have shown that displaying positive emotional expressions tends to improve interpersonal outcomes for the displayer while negative emotional expressions lead to poorer outcomes (Caballero & Menez, 2017, 2019; Hauser, Preston, & Stansfield, 2014; Krumhuber et al, 2007; Scharlemann, Eckel, Kacelnik, & Wilson, 2001; Tortosa, Strizhko, Capizzi, & Ruz, 2013, cf.…”

Improving Human Deception Detection Using Algorithmic Feedback

“…The episodes from Golden Balls were shared with us by Donja Darai for research purposes. She had previously used this TV show to study attractiveness and cooperation (Darai and Gratz, 2013). The DVDs we obtained included all episodes from Season 1 (40 episodes) and Season 2 (60 episodes).…”

A multidisciplinary survey on discrimination analysis

“…They use a conditional logit regression model, which shows that less attractive contestants are more likely to be expelled by the game in the earlier rounds. No evidence of tastebased discrimination is found by Darai and Grätz (2012) in the analysis of data gathered from Golden Balls, a game show based on the prisoner's dilemma. Other types of data sources have also been considered.…”