Response time in economic games reflects different types of decision conflict for prosocial and proself individuals

Abstract

Behavioral and neuroscientific studies explore two pathways through which internalized social norms promote prosocial behavior. One pathway involves internal control of impulsive selfishness, and the other involves emotion-based prosocial preferences that are translated into behavior when they evade cognitive control for pursuing self-interest. We measured 443 participants' overall prosocial behavior in four economic games. Participants' predispositions [social value orientation (SVO)] were more strongly reflected in their overall game behavior when they made decisions quickly than when they spent a longer time. Prosocially (or selfishly) predisposed participants behaved less prosocially (or less selfishly) when they spent more time in decision making, such that their SVO prosociality yielded limited effects in actual behavior in their slow decisions. The increase (or decrease) in slower decision makers was prominent among consistent prosocials (or proselfs) whose strong preference for prosocial (or proself) goals would make it less likely to experience conflict between prosocial and proself goals. The strong effect of RT on behavior in consistent prosocials (or proselfs) suggests that conflict between prosocial and selfish goals alone is not responsible for slow decisions. Specifically, we found that contemplation of the risk of being exploited by others (social risk aversion) was partly responsible for making consistent prosocials (but not consistent proselfs) spend longer time in decision making and behave less prosocially. Conflict between means rather than between goals (immediate versus strategic pursuit of self-interest) was suggested to be responsible for the time-related increase in consistent proselfs' prosocial behavior. The findings of this study are generally in favor of the intuitive cooperation model of prosocial behavior.prosocial behavior | economic game | social value orientation | decision time | heuristic cooperation T he question of how humans succeeded in creating and maintaining large-scale cooperation has occupied social and biological scientists for the past few centuries (1-8). Social scientists traditionally sought answers to this question by focusing on the critical role of internalized social norms that constitute the internal norm enforcement system (1-3). Recent neuroscientific and behavioral studies extended this traditional normenforcement view of human prosociality in two directions. The first direction is to identify the neural mechanisms exerting cognitive control of the selfish drive. Neuroscientists have found structural and neural correlates of prosocial and norm-enforcing choices in economic games. Experimental evidence shows that prosocial choices in economic games are positively related to cortical gray matter volume, cortical thickness, and activation of the brain areas that exert control over selfish impulsive drives, such as the anterior cingulate cortex (9, 10), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (11-13), and temporoparietal junction (14). Impairment of the DLPFC...

Preference and strategy in proposer’s prosocial giving in the ultimatum game

“…Then, they showed that the increasing difference in giving between the two games was produced mostly by a rapid decrease in giving in the DG ( Fig 1B ), rather than the increase in the UG ( Fig 1A ), among those with the thicker DLPFC. Comparable results were also reported in other studies [ 27 , 39 ]. The second purpose of our study is to critically test the two predictions depicted in Fig 1A and 1B using the CRT as an alternative measure of cognitive control.…”

“…According to the intuitive prosociality model of human cooperation [ 22 – 25 ], prosocial choices are made intuitively, while selfish choices are made when the intuitive drive for prosocial choices is cognitively suppressed through deliberative scrutiny of the immediate incentives of the situation. Earlier studies [ 26 , 27 ] that compared giving in the DG and UG in terms of the cortical thickness of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a region of the brain that is considered responsible for cognitive control, provided support for the suppression of intuitive prosocial drive account of the DG–UG difference in giving.…”

Biased sequential sampling underlies the effects of time pressure and delay in social decision making

“…However, it has recently been argued that RT data cannot be used as evidence for intuitive/deliberative processes, since they are sensitive to the particular choice problems used by the researchers 7,16,25 .…”

Cooperation and decision time

“…Presumably, habitual cooperators feel little conflict about cooperating with strangers and hence they need little time to reach a decision. On the other hand, the inverse is true for individuals with strong preferences to defect (i.e., those with individualistic or completive orientations) [42]. In summary, people feel less conflicted (and decide more quickly) when they make decisions that are in line with their pre-existing preferences and habitual behavior.…”