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On second thought, people choose to be prosocial
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On second thought, people choose to be prosocial
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ON SECOND THOUGHT, PEOPLE CHOOSE TO BE PROSOCIAL
BY
PETER MEINDL
A Thesis Presented to the
Faculty of the USC Graduate School
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
Psychology
December 2013
Los Angeles, California
ON SECOND THOUGHT ii
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................iii
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................1-9
STUDIES 1-6: Meta-analyses....................................................................................................9-17
STUDY 7..................................................................................................................................17-22
Method ....................................................................................................................................17-20
Results ....................................................................................................................................20-21
STUDY 8……………………………......................................................................................22-26
Method ....................................................................................................................................23-25
Results ....................................................................................................................................25-26
STUDY 9……………………………......................................................................................26-31
Method ....................................................................................................................................28-29
Results ....................................................................................................................................29-31
GENERAL DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................31-36
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................37-41
FIGURES ...............................................................................................................................42-48
APPENDICES..........................................................................................................................49-71
Appendix A .................................................................................................................................49
Appendix B .............................................................................................................................50-51
Appendix C .............................................................................................................................52-54
Appendix D .............................................................................................................................55-59
Appendix E .............................................................................................................................60-64
Appendix F .............................................................................................................................65-71
ON SECOND THOUGHT iii
Abstract
The effect that decision-time has on prosociality has important theoretical and practical
implications, but to date the nature of this effect remains unclear. Though most research germane
to this topic seems to suggest that increased decision-time should improve prosociality, work
done directly on this topic shows evidence of the opposite pattern - the more time people take to
decide how to act, the less prosocially they behave. Here I present the results of nine studies that
help synthesize and reconcile these conflicting lines of research. The results of the current
studies suggest that in general, prosocial behavior (generosity and cooperation) is increased as a
function of greater decision-time, but in situations in which prosociality is likely to be influenced
by egoistic motives, increased decision-time reduces prosocial behavior.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 1
On Second Thought, People Choose to be Prosocial
In the past century psychologists have demonstrated much about when and why prosocial
behavior occurs. Surprisingly, however, past research has almost exclusively focused on how
prosocially people behave when they have unlimited time to decide how to act (Dovidio,
Piliavin, Schroeder, & Penner, 2006; Penner, 2007). Thus, historically psychologists have
ignored an important question: Compared to when people act on their first impulse, are people
more prosocial after they think about how to act, less prosocial, or does decision-time not
influence prosocial behavior at all? Recent research in areas such as moral judgment and
decision-making and self-control suggests that compared to when people act on their first
impulse, people should be more prosocial after they think about how to act, but research directly
on this topic suggests that the opposite is true: increased decision-time reduces prosociality. The
purpose of the studies reported in this paper is to attempt to resolve this discrepancy.
Reconciling this discrepancy is important for at least two reasons. Most obviously, the
effect of decision-time on prosociality has important implications for what causes prosocial
behavior. Is prosocial behavior mainly impulse driven, is it largely affected by conscious
thinking, or does prosociality stem from a mix of both? Furthermore, answering this question has
important implications for the validity of most existing research on prosociality. In the real
world, people often do not have time to deliberate about whether they will act selfishly or
prosocially. Therefore, if decision-time has an effect on prosociality, the generalizability of past
research on prosociality might require further investigation.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 2
Background
Evidence of a Positive Effect of Decision-Time on Prosociality
Until recently, the only research pertinent to this topic suggested that if psychologists
were to assess the relationship between prosocial behavior and decision-time, they would find
that the relationship is positive.
Morality’s impulsive origins. First, research suggests that moral decision-making is
mainly impulse-based (Haidt, 2001), and these impulses are mostly egoistic (Epley & Caruso,
2004; Ham & van den Bos, 2008). According to the Social Intuitionist Model (SIM) of moral
judgment and decision-making, and contrary to the timeworn assumptions of moral cognitivists
such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, most of moral judgment and decision-making is
driven by people’s initial (often affect-laden) intuitions (Haidt & Bjorklund, 2007). Thus, for
instance, a person might think that they believe that having sex with a chicken carcass is wrong
because avian necrophilia goes against their moral principles, but in actuality the judgment that
this action is wrong is primarily driven by the person’s initial feeling of disgust upon hearing
about this type of sexual act.
Building upon the SIM’s idea that impulses have a profound effect on moral decision-
making, Greene and colleagues (2001, 2004) proposed that in order for people to overcome their
initial moral intuitions they must exert cognitive control. Relying largely on neurophysiological
methods, Greene and others have found strong support for this idea. For instance, Greene et al.
(2004) found that when people are presented with highly emotionally evocative moral dilemmas,
regions of the brain associated with cognitive control (such as DLPFC and ACC) are more
activated than when people are presented with less evocative moral dilemmas, and when people
“ignore” their emotional reaction to these dilemmas and make utilitarian decisions (which
ON SECOND THOUGHT 3
require them to agree to perform behaviors that are highly emotionally aversive to most people)
brain regions associated with cognitive control are more activated than when people do not make
utilitarian decisions. Greene et al. (2004) argue that these results suggest that in certain situations
in order to override one’s initial affect-laden moral intuitions and make judgments that are in line
with one’s moral principles, one must practice self-control and “push through” one’s initial
thoughts.
Egoistic impulses. Theory and empirical research also suggest that morally relevant
impulses are relatively egoistic (Epley & Caruso, 2004). Epley and Caruso (2004) have theorized
that selfishness is the default for all humans because (a) everyone automatically encodes
perceptual information according to their own perspective (i.e., their egocentric perspective), (b)
this information is then almost always automatically evaluated as good or bad, and (c) moral
judgments derive from these “good” versus “bad” evaluations. Thus, people first interpret
percepts through the lens of what is in their self-interest, and then they (might) subsequently
override this impulse in order to form a more objective assessment of circumstances. For
instance, Ham and van den Bos (2008) found that people’s first judgments of the fairness or
unfairness of various actions are influenced by what is in their self-interest, but when people are
given enough time to deliberate over their decisions their choices are far less influenced by
egoistic considerations.
The dual-processes of selfish behavior. Furthermore, research suggests that though
people’s first impulse is to act in a relatively self-interested manner, if people have enough time
to think through their decisions they tend to at least partially overcome their initial egoism. For
instance, upward social comparisons appear to impulsively lead to feelings of envy, and these
feelings of envy negatively influence the way people act towards others (Crusius and
ON SECOND THOUGHT 4
Mussweiler, 2012), but people are eventually able to override this initial feeling of envy
overriding this feeling by expending cognitive resources. These results suggest that the human
impulse is to act in a way that is considered bad or wrong, but given enough time people are able
to override this initial impulse.
Similarly, research on honesty suggests that if dishonesty will advantage oneself, the
human default is to lie, and in order to overcome this default egoism, people must exercise self-
control (Gino, Schweitzer, Mead, & Ariely, 2011; Greene & Paxton, 2009; Mead, Baumeister,
Gino, Schweitzer, & Ariely, 2009; Muraven, Pogarsky, & Shmueli, 2006; Shalvi, Eldar, &
Bereby-Meyer, 2012). For instance, Muraven, Pogarsky & Shmueli (2006) found that trait levels
of self-control seem to be associated with cheating, and Mead et al. (2009), Gino et al. (2011),
and Muraven, Pogarsky & Shmueli (2006) have all found that when people are in an “ego-
depleted” state (i.e., their self-control capacity is limited as the result of previously exercising
self-control) their integrity is reduced (e.g., in a depleted state people are less honest and are
more likely to cheat). These results suggest that as a rule of thumb, people’s first impulse is to
lie, but if self-control capacities are high enough this impulse is often overridden.
Morality under time-constraint. Perhaps most germane to the current issue, however, is
recent work by Shalvi, Eldar, and Bereby-Meyer (2012) which suggests that people are more
likely to cheat on a task when they are given a very limited amount of time to make a behavioral
decision compared to when they are given unlimited time to make decisions. In two studies,
Shalvi et al. (2012) asked participants to roll a set of die in order to determine whether they
would win a small amount of money. In both studies, participants were more likely to lie about
the outcomes of their rolls when they were forced to report their results within 20 seconds of
rolling the die than when they were given unlimited time to report the outcome of their rolls.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 5
These results suggest that more often than not people’s first impulse is to lie, but over time this
impulse either wears off or is worn down by subsequently emerging processes.
Impulsive selfishness. All of these behavioral studies have one thing in common: none of
them pit one person’s self-interest against another person’s self-interest. Thus, though these
studies may suggest that humans have an egoistic default (i.e., they want what is best for them,
even if it requires that they act immorally), these studies do not necessarily suggest that humans
have a selfish default (i.e., they put their own interests above others’ interests). People’s first
impulse might be to do what is best for them – even if this requires that they perform behaviors
that they are likely to consider morally bad – but this does not mean that their first impulse
would be to choose their own self-interest over the self-interest of another person (if given the
opportunity).
Studies by Martinsson, Myrseth and Wollbrant (2011) and DeWall, Baumeister, Galliott,
and Maner (2008) speak more to this issue; the results of these studies suggest that even when
another person is harmed through a person’s egoistic actions, people’s first impulse is generally
to do what is in their own interest. For instance, DeWall et al. (2012) found that ego-depletion
seems to reduce people’s willingness to help people in need in hypothetical situations as well as
people in need in real life. Once again, these studies suggest that the human default is to act
selfishly – in this case even if their selfish behavior will harm another person. Finally, Moll et al.
(2006) found that when people have the option between making a non-costly choice (i.e., a
choice that does not cause one to lose money) and a costly moral choice (i.e., a choice driven by
moral convictions that causes people to lose money), people who make a costly moral choice
take longer to make their choice. Though none of the studies mentioned in this section explicitly
ON SECOND THOUGHT 6
tested the effect that decision-time has on selfishness, in combination they suggest that if
decision-time has any impact on selfishness at all, it should be a negative impact.
A Different Empirical Story
However, very recent research suggests the opposite is true; generally speaking, people’s
first impulse is relatively prosocial, and greater decision-time reduces prosociality. In 10 studies,
Rand, Greene, and Nowak (2012) tested “the hypothesis that intuition preferentially supports
prosocial behaviour, whereas reflection leads to increased selfishness.” To do this, Rand et al.
(2012) assessed the effect that decision-time (studies 1-7) and deliberation (studies 8-10) have on
people’s choices in Public Goods Games or Prisoners’ Dilemma Games. In Public Goods
Games, participants are typically yoked with a small number of fellow participants (usually
four), and each participant secretly decides how much money they will place into a community
pot. The total amount of money placed in the community is multiplied by a number smaller than
the amount of participants in the group, and this money is evenly divided among participants. In
Prisoners’ Dilemma Games, two participants are yoked, and both participants must secretly
decide whether they will cooperate or not cooperate with their fellow participant. In a Prisoner’s
Dilemma game, one receives the largest payout if they decide not to cooperate and their partner
decides to cooperate, one receives the second largest payout if they and their partner both decide
to cooperate, one receives the third largest payout if they and their partner both decide not to
cooperate, and one receives the smallest possible payout if they decide to cooperate and their
partner decides not to cooperate.
The authors discovered that when people had unlimited time to decide how cooperative
to act in Public Goods Games and Prisoners’ Dilemma Games with real monetary consequences,
(a) the sooner they made a decision as to whether or not to cooperate, the more likely they were
ON SECOND THOUGHT 7
to cooperate and (b) compared to people who only had a small amount of time to make their
decision, people with unlimited time to make their decision were more likely to act selfishly.
Rand et al. (2012) suggested that their results showed that the default human tendency is to
cooperate, but if people are given enough time to act they tend to override this intuition, and thus
they conclude that “[e]ncouraging decision-makers to be maximally rational may have the
unintended side-effect of making them more selfish.”
The Default Still May Be Selfishness
Rand et al.’s (2012) findings forcefully suggest that time for reflection leads to less
cooperation in traditional Public Goods Games and Prisoners’ Dilemma Games, but it does not
follow from their results that in general “intuition preferentially supports prosocial behaviour,
whereas reflection leads to increased selfishness.” There are at least two broad reasons to
question the generalizability and accuracy of Rand et al.’s (2012) findings. First, these results
seem to contradict the previously outlined research pertinent to this issue, and second, there is
reason to suspect these results stem from the limited ability of Public Goods Games and
Prisoners’ Dilemma Games to assess selfishness and prosociality.
Potential confounds. One potential source of confounds is that noncooperation in these
games might be influenced by selfishness, but it might also be influenced by the degree to which
people are aware of which decision is most in line with their rational self-interest.
Due to the typical payout structure of a one shot Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, the Nash
equilibrium (i.e., the decision that is in most in line with both participants’ self-interest if they
are taking into account the decision-making of the other participant) is to always defect. In other
words, in a one shot Prisoners’ Dilemma Game the most rationally self-interested decision for
ON SECOND THOUGHT 8
any participant is to not cooperate (Nash, 1950). This is because no matter what an actor’s
partner chooses, the actor is better off choosing to defect than to cooperate.
However, it is likely that this is initially unclear to many – if not most – Prisoners’
Dilemma Game novices. The more a person thinks deeply about the structure of the game,
however, the more likely it is that they will realize that cooperation is risky and generally goes
against their self-interest, which should then cause people to be less likely to cooperate. Because
of the risk involved in cooperating in a Prisoners’ Dilemma Game, even a person who desires to
be cooperative might turn to noncooperation if they perceive the risks of cooperation to be too
great. Consequently, in Rand et al.’s (2012) Prisoners’ Dilemma Game studies, cooperation
might have appeared to be influenced by cognitive reflection partly or entirely because through
reflection people became more aware of what was in their self-interest. In other words,
cooperation might have decreased even though selfishness might not have increased at all.
Similarly, there is evidence that when playing Public Goods games a sizeable number of
participants decide to cooperate (i.e., put money into the community pot) because they
incorrectly believe that it is in their self-interest to cooperate (Ferraro & Vossler, 2005), and
when the consequences of cooperating are made clearer, people tend to cooperate less (Burton-
Chellew & West, 2013). It is therefore reasonable to speculate that deliberation might reduce
cooperation in Public Goods Games simply because it increases the likelihood that people are
aware that cooperation goes against their self-interest. Again, if this is the case, this means that
deliberation may reduce cooperation even without influencing selfishness at all.
Thus, when playing Prisoners’ Dilemma Games and Public Goods Games it is possible
that decision-time does not influence a person’s selfishness yet still reduces cooperation. For this
reason, in combination with the research findings outlined above, I expect that - contrary to
ON SECOND THOUGHT 9
Rand, Greene, and Nowak’s (2012) findings – increased decision-time generally increases
prosociality. I expect that decision-time will not be positively related to prosociality when
prosociality may occur on account of egoistic motives.
Overview of Studies
Nine studies were designed to test these hypotheses. The first eight studies were designed
to test the relationship between prosocial behavior and decision-time. Studies 7-9 were partly
designed to investigate whether decision-time is only positively related to prosociality when
prosociality is measured in such a way that egoistic motives are relatively unlikely to account for
prosocial behavior. Deception was not used in any of these studies.
Studies 1-6
Studies 1-6 were designed to begin to test the main hypothesis that if methods of
assessing selfishness and prosociality aside from Prisoners’ Dilemma Games and Public Goods
Games are used, decision-time will lead to greater prosociality. As a first test of this hypothesis, I
analyzed data from all studies I had previously conducted that measured (a) a person’s
willingness to give money to others and (b) the length of time they took to decide how much
money (if any) they were willing to give to other people. In total, six studies met the criteria of
including measures of both willingness to give and reaction time. However, all six of these
studies were composed of a smaller amount of participants than I deemed optimal for the type of
analyses that are the focus of this paper (based on the results of a power analysis), and thus I
used meta-analytic techniques to analyze the aggregate results of these studies. Here I report the
results of each study and then report the combined, meta-analytic findings.
These studies were not initially conducted for the purpose of testing the relationship
between decision-time and generosity, and thus each study included numerous extraneous
ON SECOND THOUGHT 10
variables. Most notably, each of these studies was originally designed to test the effect of an
experimental manipulation that is not relevant to the purpose of the current paper. I did not have
a priori hypotheses regarding how these manipulations would influence the relationship between
decision-time and generosity, nor do I now have any predictions about how these manipulations
might have influenced this relationship, and thus I conducted three separate small meta-analyses:
one in which the data in each study were combined, one in which the data in each study were
grouped according to condition, and one in which only data from each study’s neutral condition
were analyzed.
Study 1 - Methods
Participants. Participants were 100 “workers” on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT)
crowd-sourcing website (57% male, M
age
= 28.40). Research suggests that data derived from
AMT participants is comparable to data collected from “offline” participants (Buhrmester,
Kwang, & Gosling, 2011; Horton & Chilton, 2010; Paolacci, Chandler, & Ipeirotis, 2010; Rand,
Greene, & Nowak, 2012). Each participant in each of the first six studies reported received $0.25
for agreeing to participate in this study, and each was told that they would have the chance to
win up to $50 of bonus money as well.
Procedure. Participants in a moral assessment condition were first told to imagine that
they were given a random change to with a $50 bonus for their work, and they were also told to
imagine that before they were informed of whether they won the bonus or not they were also
given the chance to give $30 of this money to a charity of their choice if they were to win it.
They were then asked to complete two questions designed to assess how morally acceptable they
considered it to be for them to keep the money for themselves. Participants in a neutral condition
did not complete this portion of the study.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 11
Participants in the moral assessment condition and in the neutral condition were then told
that later in the study they actually had a chance to win a $50 bonus and they were asked to
decide whether they would give $30 of their $50 bonus to a charity of their choice if they were
chosen as the winner of the $50 or whether they would keep all $50 for themselves. Hence, in
Study 1 charitable giving was assessed using a dichotomous variable ($30 or $0). Participants
made their choice and then completed a number of demographic items (see Appendix A for exact
materials).
Study 1 – Descriptive Results
If an IP address was recorded more than once in Study 1, only the first set of data
associated with that IP address was included in analyses. All data associated with repeat IP
addresses was discarded in order to reduce the effect of people completing the study multiple
times. This step was also taken for all subsequent studies reported in this paper. In the current
study, 11 lines of data were deleted for this reason. Additionally, the data of six participants was
not included in analyses because they did not complete the study. Thirty-four percent of
participants agreed to give $30 to charity if they won the $50 bonus (SD = .48), and on average
they took 6.09 seconds to decide how much money they would give to charity (SD = 5.66).
Because decision-time was positively skewed, the decision-time data for this study and every
other study reported in this paper in which decision-time was used as an independent variable
was log10 transformed (see Rand et al., 2013; p.427). In studies 1-6, positive correlations
indicate greater generosity with longer decision time, and greater selfishness with shorter
decision times. The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving in this subset of
Study 1 was r(74) = .42, p < .001. Decision-time and charitable giving were significantly related
both in the neutral condition (r(37) = .39, p = .012) and in the experimental condition (r(35) =
ON SECOND THOUGHT 12
.50, p = .002). Thus, the longer people spent deciding whether they would give $30 to charity,
the more likely they were to do so.
Study 2 - Methods
Participants. Participants were 101 AMT workers (49.5% male, M
age
= 32.96).
Procedure. The procedures for Study 2 were identical to the procedures for Study 1 with
one exception – participants choose between keeping $50 or giving $25 to charity and only
keeping $25.
Study 2 – Descriptive Results
Eleven participants failed to complete the study, and three lines of data were deleted due
to repeat IP addresses. In Study 2, 34.3% of participants agreed to give $25 to charity (SD = .48),
and on average participants took 8.45 seconds to decide how much money they would give to
charity (SD = 8.62). The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving was r(91) =
.15, p = .14. The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving in the neutral condition
was r(44) = .21, p = .047, and in the experimental condition the correlation was r(48) = .11, p =
.43.
Study 3 - Methods
Participants. Participants were 101 AMT workers (59.8% male, M
age
= 29.97).
Procedure. The procedures for Study 3 were identical to the procedures for Study 1 with
three exceptions. First, there was not a neutral condition. Instead, there were two moral
assessment conditions. Participants in a “self” condition answered questions designed to
determine how morally right and wrong they considered it to be for themselves to keep a $50
bonus or give it to charity, and participants in an “other” condition answered questions designed
to determine how morally right or wrong they considered it to be for other people to keep the $50
ON SECOND THOUGHT 13
or give it to charity. Second, participants completed four items (rather than two items) designed
to measure the moral acceptability of keeping the bonus money. Third, participants were told that
once they clicked on an option indicating whether or not they were willing to give $30 of their
bonus to charity, their decision would be automatically stored and they would not be able to
change it (See Appendix B for exact materials).
Study 3 – Descriptive Results
Twenty participants failed to complete the study, and two lines of data were deleted due
to repeat IP addresses. In Study 3, 53.6% of participants agreed to give $30 to charity (SD = .50),
and on average participants took 9.80 seconds to decide how much money they would give to
charity (SD = 11.30). The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving in this subset
of Study 1 was r(91) = .05, p = .67. The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving
in the “self” condition was r(45) = .07, p = .60, and in the “other” condition the correlation was
r(45) = -.025, p = .87.
Study 4 - Methods
Participants. Participants were 115 AMT workers (48.6% male, M
age
= 31.41).
Procedure. Participants in a “temptation” condition were first shown a picture of a 50
dollar bill, were asked to imagine they were given $50, and were told to spend it on themselves
in the way that would cause them to experience the greatest amount of pleasure. They were then
asked to write about what they would do with this money, why they would use this money in this
way, and how they would feel as a result of spending $50 in this way (See Appendix C for exact
wording of prompt).
Participants in this “temptation” condition as well as a “no temptation” neutral condition
were then asked to report (on a 0-100 scale) the degree to which they presently desired $50. They
ON SECOND THOUGHT 14
were then told to imagine that they were given a random change to with $50, and they were also
told to imagine that before they were informed of whether they won the money or not they were
also given the chance to give some or all of this money to a charity of their choice if they were to
win it. They were then asked to complete three questions designed to assess how morally
acceptable they considered it to be for them to keep the money for themselves. On the next page
participants were then told that later in the study they would actually be given this opportunity,
and on the very next page they were asked to decide how much – if any – of their $50 would go
to charity if they won it (See Appendix C for exact materials). Participants subsequently
completed questionnaires not relevant to the current study.
Study 4 - Descriptive Results
Forty-two participants did not complete the study and four lines of data were deleted due
to repeat IP addresses. On average, participants agreed to give $18.91 to charity (SD = 13.87),
and on average they took 15.20 seconds to decide how much money they would give to charity
(SD = 12.06). The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving in Study 3 was r(69)
= -.12, p = .31. The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving in the neutral
condition was r(43) = -.03, p = .86, and in the experimental condition the correlation was r(25) =
-.23, p = .26.
Study 5 - Methods
Participants. Participants were 32 AMT workers (64.5% male, M
age
= 27.81).
Procedure. The procedures for Study 5 were identical to the procedures for Study 3,
except that at the beginning of the study participants in the neutral condition were asked to write
three short essays about what the weather had been like in the past week (essay #1), month
(essay #2), and three months (essay #3).
ON SECOND THOUGHT 15
Study 5 - Descriptive Results
One participant did not complete Study 5. On average, participants agreed to give $19.45
to charity (SD = 15.57), and on average they took 11.58 seconds to decide how much money they
would give to charity (SD = 10.64). The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving
in Study 5 was r(30) = .01, p = .95. The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving
in the neutral condition was r(15) = .18, p = .50, and in the experimental condition the
correlation was r(13) = -.196, p = .50.
Study 6 - Methods
Participants. Participants were 100 AMT workers (48.3% male, M
age
= 31.91).
Procedure. The procedures for Study 6 were identical to the procedures for Study 3
except that participants in the temptation condition were asked to write about why they thought
spending money brought people enjoyment (“Why do you think money brings people
enjoyment?”), rather than how they would feel as a result of spending $50.
Study 6 - Descriptive Results
Eight participants failed to complete the study, and five lines of data were deleted due to
repeat IP addresses. On average, participants agreed to give $20.43 to charity (SD = 15.18), and
on average they took 12.69 seconds to decide how much money they would give to charity (SD =
10.65). The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving in this subset of Study 1 was
r(87) = 0.15, p = .09. The correlation between decision-time and charitable giving in the neutral
condition was r(48) = .11, p = .16, and in the experimental condition the correlation was r(37) =
.28, p = .09.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 16
Meta-Analysis of Studies 1-6 – Results and Discussion
Three meta-analyses were performed on the data from Studies 1 through 6: one in which
the conditions in each study were combined (six aggregated effect sizes), one in which the
conditions were separated (12 effect sizes), and one in which only data from neutral conditions
was included (five effect sizes). The results of Study 3 were not included in the third meta-
analysis because this study did not include a neutral condition.
Effect sizes were calculated directly from the Pearson’s r-values and sample sizes. As is
depicted in Figures 1-3, in the majority of studies and conditions, the relationship between
decision-time and generosity was in the expected direction (positive, indicating greater
generosity with longer decision times), though most 95% confidence intervals crossed zero.
The effect sizes of the six studies were combined, and a fixed-effects meta-analytic
method was used to analyze the combined data (Hedges & Olkin, 1985). When conditions were
combined, the relationship between decision-time and giving was positive and significant (r(411)
= .14, CI
95
= .04, .23, p = .004); when conditions were separated, the relationship was positive
and significant (r(411) = .14, CI
95
= .04, .23, p = .005); and when only neutral conditions were
included, the relationship was still positive and significant (r(411) = .16, CI
95
= .02, .30, p =
.028).
The meta-analysis reveals a small but reliable relationship between giving and decision
time, such that quicker decisions were more selfish and longer decisions were more generous.
Though this relationship was not found in all six studies, any one of the results of these studies
could easily result from either Type I or Type II error due to the small size of the samples used in
many of these six studies. However, the fact that the combined result was highly significant in
the expected direction provides strong initial support for our hypothesis that when generosity is
ON SECOND THOUGHT 17
assessed more straightforwardly than in cooperative/competitive economic games, it is positively
– rather than negatively – associated with decision-time.
Study 7
Study 7 was designed with three purposes in mind. First, Study 7 was designed to test the
causal relationship between decision-time and prosociality by manipulating decision-time.
Second, Study 7 was designed to assess the external validity of the combined results of Studies
1-6. The combined results of these studies suggest that decision-time is positively related to
prosociality, but all six of these studies used generosity as a dependent variable. In Study 7,
cooperation was assessed instead. Finally, Study 7 was designed to test whether decision-time is
more likely to increase prosociality when prosociality is measured in such a way that egoistic
motives are relatively unlikely to account for prosocial behavior.
Methods
Participants. Participants were 508 AMT workers (66.1% male, M
age
= 30.40). Each
participant received $0.25 for agreeing to participate in this study. Participants were told that
they would have a chance to earn a small amount of bonus money as well. Past research suggests
that the results of online economic games are similar to the results of “offline” economic games,
and that size of the monetary stakes in economic games does not have a large influence on how
people play these games (Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012).
Procedure. Participants were assigned to a traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game or an
adapted game. Each participant was also assigned either to a time constraint condition or a time
delay condition.
Participants in both game conditions were first told to imagine they were given a certain
set of instructions. Participants in the Traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Game condition were
ON SECOND THOUGHT 18
asked to imagine they were given the following instructions (text in bold was not included in the
Adapted Prisoners’ Dilemma Game condition):
All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player
B. At the end of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the
answer of one Player B, who has also completed this study online. Some pairs of
people will be chosen at random to receive bonus money. The amount of bonus
money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined by the choices
both members of the pair make in what we call 'The Money Game.' In 'The
Money Game' you must choose between cooperating with the other person in
your group or not cooperating with them, without knowing what the other
person in your group has chosen or will choose.
Participants in the adapted condition were asked to imagine they were given the
following instructions (text in bold was not included in the Traditional Prisoners’
Dilemma Game condition):
All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player
B. At the end of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the
answer of one Player B, who has also completed this study online. Some pairs of
people will be chosen at random to receive bonus money. The amount of bonus
money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined by the choice
Player A makes in what we call 'The Money Game.' In ‘The Money Game’ you
must choose between cooperating with the other person in your group or not
cooperating with them. Note that Player B's choice does not affect the game
Participants in the Traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Game condition were then told to
imagine that in this hypothetical game if Player A and their partner both decided to
cooperate, both players would receive $0.50 (if their pair was randomly selected to
receive money); if Player A and their partner both decided not to cooperate, they would
each receive $0.30 (if they were randomly selected to receive money); if Player A
decided to cooperate and their partner decided not to cooperate, Player A would get no
money and their partner would get $0.70 (if their pair was randomly selected to receive
money); and if Player A decided not to cooperate and their partner decided to cooperate,
ON SECOND THOUGHT 19
Player A would get $0.70 and their partner would get nothing (if their pair was randomly
selected to receive money).
Participants in the adapted condition were told that in this game, if Player A
decided to cooperate, both players would receive $0.50 if their pair was randomly
selected to receive money, and if Player A decided not to cooperate, Player A would
receive $0.70 and Player B would receive $0.30 if their pair was randomly selected to
receive money (Figure 4). The payout structure of the adapted game was designed to be
similar to the payout structure of the Traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Game, with the
important exception that the amount of money Player A would receive if their pair was
randomly selected was entirely determined by their decision alone (Figure 5). The
adapted condition was designed in this way in order to extract the effects that risk and
trust might have on participants’ decisions. Also, in this adapted condition it was unlikely
that deliberation would decrease cooperation due to an increased awareness of which
decision is in one’s self-interest, because the consequences of decisions were not
contingent upon other people’s decisions and thus should have been clear even to novices
of economic games. It is important to note that the adapted condition was similar to a
typical dictator game in that participants determined how much money they received and
how much money a yoked participant received, but this condition differed from a typical
dictator game in that the options were dichotomous.
On the next page, participants in both conditions were asked to complete
questions designed to assess their comprehension of the information they had just read
and one item designed to assess how well they thought they understood the directions.
Participants in the Traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Game condition completed four
ON SECOND THOUGHT 20
comprehension questions and participants in the Adapted Prisoners’ Dilemma Game
condition completed two, because the items assessed how well participants remembered
the possible consequences of decisions in these games (there were four different possible
consequences in the Traditional condition and only two in the Adapted condition).
If participants in either condition answered any comprehension questions
incorrectly they were shown the information page again and were then asked to again
answer the comprehension questions. Regardless of whether participants correctly
answered the comprehension questions on their second attempt they were allowed to
continue to the next page of the study. On this page, they were informed either that on the
next page they would have up to 15 seconds to answer a single question (time constraint
condition) or they were told that they would have at least 30 seconds to answer a single
question (time delay condition). Importantly, on this page they were not told what the
question would be.
On the next page, participants in each condition were given the following
information: “Now we're giving you the chance to actually play ‘The Money Game.’ The
rules are the same as the rules you just read, but now your decision will actually influence
how much money you receive if your pair is chosen.” On the bottom of this page,
participants could choose between an “I choose to cooperate” option and an “I choose not
to cooperate” option. The order of these options was randomized for each participant.
Finally, participants completed four demographic questions, were asked to write down
their confirmation number, and were thanked for their participation (see Appendix D for
exact materials).
ON SECOND THOUGHT 21
Results
Data from thirty-eight participants were dropped because these participants twice failed
to correctly answer the comprehension questions. Twenty-six lines of data were deleted due to
repeat IP addresses. Overall, 63.5% of participants cooperated (52.8% of participants in the
Traditional/Time-Constraint condition cooperated, 48.5% of participants in the Traditional/Time
Delay condition cooperated, 68.1% of participants in the Adapted/Time-Constraint condition
cooperated, and 80.7% of participants in the Adapted Time Delay condition cooperated) (Figure
6).
A two-way ANOVA with time (constraint vs. delay) and game type (traditional vs.
adapted) set as independent variables revealed a main effect of Prisoners’ Dilemma Game
condition (traditional vs. adapted), F (1,440) = 28.60, p < .001, no main effect of time condition,
F (1,440) = .85, p = .36, and a marginally significant interaction effect, F (1, 440) = 3.59, p =
0.059 (Figure 6). Analyses of the simple effects revealed that as expected, participants in the
Adapted/Time-Constraint condition were less likely to cooperate than participants in the
Adapted/Time Delay condition (t (235) = -2.23, p = .027), whereas participants in the
Traditional/Time-Constraint condition did not cooperate at a significantly different rate than
participants in the Traditional/Time Delay condition (t (205) = .62, p = .537).
Discussion
These results replicate the findings of studies 1-6; when prosociality and
selfishness are measured using an assessment of prosociality that is less likely to be
influenced by the confounds mentioned in the introduction of this paper, deliberation is
positively related to generosity. Furthermore, because decision-time was experimentally
manipulated in this study, these results suggest that greater decision-time directly causes
ON SECOND THOUGHT 22
people to act more generously. Though the findings of Rand et al. (2012) were not
replicated (i.e., in the Traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Game condition there was no
evidence of a negative relationship between decision-time and cooperation), it is possible
this is due to AMT participants’ increasing familiarity with such economic games (see
Rand et al. (2013), for evidence that the replicability of their effect is declining over time
on AMT). Most importantly, in the adapted conditions I found support for my main
hypothesis, which is that deliberation will increase prosociality when prosociality is
measured using a version of the PD that does not involve considerations of the others’
decision, risk, or any potential for self-interested gains. This hypothesis is further tested
in Study 8, using an adapted Public Goods Game instead of an adapted Prisoner’s
Dilemma game.
Study 8
Study 8 was designed with three purposes in mind. First, Study 8 was designed to test
whether decision-time increases prosociality when the consequences of a person’s actions are not
influenced by chance. In studies 1-7, the money participants kept or gave away was somewhat
hypothetical, because they were told that they only had a chance of winning the money. In
contrast, in Study 8 every participant was guaranteed to receive money if they decided to act
selfishly. Second, Study 8 was designed to test whether decision-time is more likely to be
positively related to prosociality when prosociality is measured in such a way that egoistic
motives are relatively unlikely to account for prosocial behavior. Final, Study 8 was designed to
test whether participants’ experience participating in Public Goods games influences the
relationship between decision-time and choices in these games. Unpublished research suggests
that the effects published by Rand, Greene, and Nowak (2012) are influenced by the amount of
ON SECOND THOUGHT 23
experience people have with economic games (Rand et al., 2013). Specifically, it seems that the
more experience people have with these games, the less likely it is that their decisions in these
games will be related to their decision-time. Thus, one reason why Rand, Greene, and Nowak’s
(2012) findings were not replicated in Study 7 might have been because many of my participants
were experienced Prisoner’s Dilemma Game players. I suspected that if participants were not
well versed in economic games, Rand, Greene, and Nowak’s (2012) findings would replicate. I
also suspected that – in line with my main hypothesis – prosociality would be positively related
to decision-time when it is assessed using a more valid measure of prosociality.
Methods
Participants. Participants were 514 AMT workers (69.1% male, M
age
= 27.64). Each
participant received $0.50 for agreeing to participate in the study. Participants were told that they
would have a chance to earn a small amount of bonus money as well.
Procedure. Participants were assigned to participate in a Traditional Public Goods Game
or an adapted game. Participants in both game conditions were told that the amount of bonus
money they received would be determined by the outcome of a scenario that would be described
later in the study. On the next page, participants in the Traditional Public Goods Game condition
were then provided with the following information (text in bold was not included in the Adapted
Public Goods Game condition):
You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money
for yourself or you can put some or all of this bonus money into a "money pot."
Any bonus money you place in this "money pot" will be multiplied by two and
then distributed evenly among you and three other people who use this website.
Similarly, if any of these other people decide to put some or all of their bonus
money into the "money pot," this money will be multiplied by two and
divided evenly among you and the three other people.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules,
so only continue to the next page when you know the rules.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 24
The adapted condition was designed to be a more valid measure of generosity and
cooperation. Participants in the adapted condition were given the following instructions
(text in bold was not included in the Traditional Public Goods Game condition):
You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money
for yourself or you can put some or all of this bonus money into a "money pot."
Any bonus money you place in this "money pot" will be multiplied by two and
then distributed evenly among four other people who use this website.
Therefore, the money you donate will be multiplied and given to four people,
but you will not get any of it back.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules,
so only continue to the next page when you know the rules.
This condition was designed in such a way that the only reason participants would put
money into the pot would be in order to help others. On the next page, participants in
both conditions were told that on the page that followed they would be asked to decide
how much bonus money (if any at all) they would place in the “money pot,” and then on
the next page they were instructed to decide how much money they would place in the
pot. Participants were able to choose to place into the pot any amount from $0.00 - $0.40
in increments of 2 cents. Participants chose in increments of two so that the final amount
of money in the pot could be divided evenly.
Afterwards, participants in both conditions were asked to complete two questions
designed to assess their comprehension of the instructions. Some participants also completed a
third comprehension question that was deleted after 85 participants completed it because it was
deemed to be inappropriately easy (and thus did not serve as a useful assessment of people’s
comprehension of the rules of the scenario they had participated in). Participants were then asked
“To what extent have you participated in studies like this one before? (i.e. where you choose how
much to keep for yourself versus contributing to benefit others)” (taken from Rand et al., 2012).
ON SECOND THOUGHT 25
Finally, participants completed six demographic questions, were asked to write down their
confirmation number, and were thanked for their participation (see Appendix E for exact
materials).
Results and Discussion
Data from one hundred fifty six participants were dropped because these participants
answered the comprehension questions incorrectly, and therefore did not seem to fully
understand the relationship between putting money into the pot and consequences for themselves
and other participants. Six lines of data were deleted for having an IP address that had already
been recorded. On average, participants placed $0.17 (42.5% of their bonus money) into the pot,
with participants in the Traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Game condition on average placing
$0.22 cents into the pot and participants in the Adapted condition on average placing $0.14 into
the pot. On average, participants took 8.1 seconds to decide how much money to place into the
pot (SD = 10.78). Participants in the Traditional condition took slightly less time to make their
decision (M = 7.38, SD = 7.6) than participants in the Adapted condition (M = 8.59, SD = 12.73),
but this difference was not significant (t(346) = -1.04, p = .30).
I first ran a moderated regression analysis in which decision times, condition (Traditional
or Adapted), and the interaction term between decision-time and condition were used to predict
the amount of money placed in the pot. There was a significant main effect of condition, β = -
14.55, p < .001 (people in traditional condition gave more), no main effect of decision time, β = -
8.41, p = .24, and a significant decision time-condition interaction ( β = 8.70, p = .043) such that
there was more of an effect of decision time on giving in the adapted condition than in the
traditional condition (see Figure 7).
ON SECOND THOUGHT 26
In the Adapted condition, decision-time was positively related to the amount of money
participants placed in the pot, r(151) = .25, p < .001, but in the Traditional Public Goods Game
condition there was not a significant relationship between decision-time and giving, r(192) = .01,
p = .94 (Figure 5). However, among participants who reported not having any experience with
Public Goods Games there was a significant negative relationship between decision-time and
giving, r(45) = -.32, p = .028, replicating Rand et al. (2012).
Thus, the results of Study 8 suggest that decision-time is positively related to prosociality
when prosociality is measured in such a way that prosociality is relatively unlikely to result from
selfish motives. When selfish motives (e.g., risk aversion) are likely to influence prosociality,
decision-time is not positively related to decision-time. Though overall the results of Study 8
suggest that decision-time is not related to prosociality when prosociality is measured using a
traditional Public Goods Game (in which selfish motives might stimulate prosocial behavior), it
seems that this is only the case when people have experience with Public Goods Games. When
people are not experienced Public Goods Game players, decision-time appears to be negatively
related to prosociality in a traditional Public Goods Game – a result that confirms the findings of
Rand et al. (2012).
Study 9
The results of studies 1-8 suggest that although in very specific situations decision-time
does not increase prosociality, decision-time generally does increase prosociality. The results of
studies 7 and 8 also provide insight into when decision-time does and does not increase
prosociality: specifically, decision-time seems to increase prosociality when the degree to which
a person acts prosocially is not influenced by egoistic motives (e.g., risk aversion). The purpose
of Study 9 was to further investigate this possibility.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 27
Conceptualizing prosociality. In psychology, normative concepts such as “morality,”
“prosociality,” and “selfishness,” can be operationalized in at least two ways – researchers can
determine how such constructs are measured without taking into account laypersons’ perceptions
of the chosen measure, or they can take the layperson’s perspective into account when
determining how to measure a normative concept (Frimer & Walker, 2009; Meindl & Graham,
2013). Researchers tend to use the former approach. Sometimes, however, it is important to take
into account how participants themselves may perceive possible responses on a measure, because
otherwise participants’ actual responses might not be indicative of the construct the measure
purportedly assesses.
Such is the case with past research in which economic games are used as proxies of
prosociality and morality (e.g., Batson & Moran, 1999; Cohen, Montoya, & Insko, 2006; Rand,
Greene, & Nowak, 2012; Twenge, J. M., Baumeister, R. F., DeWall, C., Ciarocco, N. J., &
Bartels, 2007). Many of the possible confounds and sources of invalidity in the Rand, Greene,
and Nowak (2012) stem from participants’ perceptions of the prosociality of different choices on
Prisoners’ Dilemma Games and Public Goods Games. For example, if participants do not
consider noncooperation in a typical Prisoners’ Dilemma Game to be a selfish act, the effect of
decision-time on their choice to cooperate or not might not have the same influence on their
decision-making as if they feel pulled between what they consider selfish and what they consider
selfless, cooperative, or generous. Therefore, it is possible that in studies 7-8 decision-time was
not positively related to prosociality in the traditional economic games’ conditions in part
because people did not perceive these situations to be highly prosocially-relevant.
Study 9 was designed to test the degree to which people perceive the dependent variables
used in studies 1-8 to be prosocially-relevant. I expected participants to consider the type of
ON SECOND THOUGHT 28
scenario used in studies 1-6 to be a good measure of selfishness and generosity (i.e., I expected
people to rate different decisions on these scenarios as considerably selfish or generous). I also
suspected that people would not consider either decision in a traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma
Game (nearly identical to the traditional version in Study 7) to be highly selfish, generous,
cooperative, or uncooperative relative to an adapted scenario (nearly identical to the adapted
version in Study 7) in which payment was not influenced by other people’s decisions (and thus
there was no risk or uncertainty about the consequences of a decision). Finally, I expected
participants to consider traditional Public Goods Games (nearly identical to the traditional
version in Study 8) to be relatively poor assessments of selfishness and generosity, though I
expected this type of measure to appear to laypeople to be a good measure of cooperation.
Method
Participants. Participants were 604 AMT workers. .Each participant in the pretest
received either $0.25 or $0.50 for agreeing to participate in this study.
1
Procedure. Each participant reported the degree to which they considered different
choices in Prisoners’ Dilemma Games and Public Goods Games to be (a) selfish or generous and
(b) cooperative or uncooperative on 9-point Likert scales (Extremely Cooperative-Extremely
Uncooperative; Extremely Selfish-Extremely Generous). Participants either rated the selfishness,
generosity, and cooperativeness of decisions on traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Games and
Public Goods Games or adapted versions of both games; these games were nearly identical to the
games previously described in studies 7 and 8.
1
The first 199 participants were given $0.25 for their participation in this study, and the final 405 participants were
given $0.50. This change in compensation was made because recruitment was slow when participants were only
guaranteed $0.25. None of the results reported in this section differed significantly between these two groups of
participants.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 29
For the Prisoners’ Dilemma games, participants responded to four items – one which
asked about the selfishness/generosity of choosing “Option One” (i.e., cooperating), one asking
about the cooperativeness/uncooperativeness of this option, one asking about the
selfishness/generosity of choosing “Option Two” (i.e., defecting), and one asking about the
cooperativeness/uncooperativeness of this option. For the Public Goods games, participants
reported how selfish/generous and cooperative/uncooperative they perceived (a) keeping all of
one’s money, (b) putting half of one’s money in the community pot ($0.20), and (c) putting all of
one’s money in the community pot ($0.40).
Additionally, each participant rated how selfish or generous they considered it to be for
them to agree to give different amounts of money to charity if they were to win $50 in bonus
money ($0, $25, $30, and $50) for completing a study on AMT. Specifically, each participant
rated the selfishness or generosity of giving $0, $25, $30, and $50 to charity if they were
presented with this opportunity. Finally, as an attention/comprehension check, participants rated
the selfishness/generosity and cooperativeness/uncooperativeness of eating pickles; data from
participants who rated this action as anything but neutral in terms of selfishness, generosity, and
cooperativeness were deleted (see Appendix F for exact materials).
Results
Fifteen lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses. Additionally, data from 144
participants were deleted because these participants did not rate “eating pickles” as neutral in
terms of selfishness/generosity and/or cooperativeness/uncooperativeness.
Prisoners’ Dilemma Games. In order to test the difference between how
selfish/generous and cooperative/uncooperative participants considered the choice of Option 1
(the cooperation choice) and Option 2 (the defection choice) in the traditional versus the adapted
ON SECOND THOUGHT 30
Prisoners’ Dilemma games used in Study 9 (as well as in Study 7), I created two aggregated
measures for each participant: a selfish/generous measure and a cooperative/uncooperative
measure. I created the selfish/generous measure by combining participants’ responses regarding
the generousness of choosing Option 1 and participants’ responses regarding the selfishness of
choosing Option 2; the latter responses were reverse scored so that when combined with
participants’ generousness responses the resultant score could be used as a measure of how
indicative of generousness and selfishness participants considered choosing Option 1. Similarly,
I created the cooperative/uncooperative measure by combining participants responses regarding
the cooperativeness of choosing Option 1 and participants’ responses regarding the
uncooperativeness of choosing Option 2 (once again, these responses were reverse scored).
I then conducted two independent samples t-tests comparing scores on these aggregated
measures between conditions (Traditional vs. Adapted). As was expected, behavior in the
adapted Prisoners’ Dilemma Game was rated as more relevant to selfishness/generosity (t(442) =
-6.11, p < .001) and cooperativeness/uncooperativeness (t(442) = 4.43, p < .001) than behavior in
the traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma Game.
Public Goods Games. In order to test the difference between how selfish/generous and
cooperative/uncooperative participants considered actions to be in the traditional versus the
adapted Prisoners’ Dilemma games used in Study 9 (as well as in Study 7), I created two
aggregated measures for each participant: a selfish/generous measure and a
cooperative/uncooperative measure. Before creating these measures by combining participants’
responses, their responses to items asking about the selfishness/generousness and
cooperativeness/uncooperativeness of not putting any money into the pot were reverse scored.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 31
I then conducted two independent samples t-tests comparing scores on these aggregated
measures between conditions (Traditional vs. Adapted). As was expected, behavior in the
adapted Public Goods Game was rated as more relevant to selfishness/generosity (t(442) = -4.11,
p < .001), but also as was expected there was no evidence that people considered behavior in
either the Traditional or Adapted Public Goods Game to be more indicative
cooperativeness/uncooperativeness (t(442) = .78, p = .78).
Charitable giving. On average, participants considered it somewhat selfish for people to
not agree to give any money to charity if they won a $50 bonus (M = 3.20, SD = 1.67), and they
considered it somewhat or very generous to agree to give $25 (M = 7.25, SD = 1.20), $30 (M =
7.57, SD = 1.16), and $50 (M = 8.49, SD = 1.26) of their bonus to charity.
Overall these results suggest that laypeople consider traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma
Games to be relatively weak measures of prosociality (selfishness, generosity, or cooperation),
and they consider traditional Public Goods Games to be relatively weak assessments of
selfishness and generosity. In combination with the results of studies 1-8, these results also
suggest that deliberation’s influence on decisions in these games might be explained by factors
orthogonal to selfishness. In studies 7 and 8, decisions on traditional economic games were not
related to decision-time, but decisions on adapted economic games (which people in Study 9
judge to be more prosocially-relevant) were related to decision-time.
General Discussion
The results of the nine studies reported in this paper suggest that when
prosociality and selfishness are measured separately from the risk and possible self-
interested rewards associated with typical economic games, increases in decision-time
lead to increased prosociality. In studies 1-6, decision-time was positively related to
ON SECOND THOUGHT 32
generosity. In Study 7, greater decision-time led to more cooperation in an adapted
Prisoners’ Dilemma Game (in which egoistic motives were less likely to underlie
prosocial behavior) but did not affect decisions on a traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma
Game. In Study 8, decision-time was positively related to cooperation and generosity in
an adapted Public Goods Game (in which egoistic motives were less likely to underlie
prosocial behavior) but not a traditional Public Goods Game. Finally, in Study 9
participants rated the behaviors that were positively affected by decision-time in the first
eight studies to be highly prosocially-relevant and more prosocially-relevant than the
behaviors in studies 7 and 8 that were not positively related to decision-time (specifically,
decisions in classic economic games).
Importantly, these results partially replicate Rand et al.’s (2012) findings. At least
among people who do not have experience playing Public Goods Games, cooperation in
these games was negatively related to decision-time. Thus, overall the current studies
suggest that only under very specific circumstances does increased decision-time lead to
less prosociality, and in these situations a lack of prosocial behavior may not be a sign of
selfishness (as the results of Study 9 suggest). It is likely that in general, increases in
decision-time increase prosociality, and past research (Rand et al., 2012) suggested the
opposite was true because in this past research egoistic motives influenced the degree to
which people acted prosocially.
Thus, coupled with Rand et al.’s (2012) results, the current results serve as a
reminder of why the application of psychological research to policy decisions is an action
that should be performed with great caution, and only after psychological phenomena
have been investigated from many different angles. Rand et al. (2012) inferred from their
ON SECOND THOUGHT 33
results that “[e]ncouraging decision-makers to be maximally rational may have the
unintended side-effect of making them more selfish…whereas interventions targeting
prosocial intuitions may be more successful.” The results of the current set of studies
suggest that rationality is more likely to increase prosociality than to increase selfishness.
Of course, the current studies possess limitations of their own, and thus many more
studies on this topic are needed before the effects of “rationality training” on prosocial
behavior could be understood.
Limitations
There are at least two important limitations to the nine studies reported here. First, the
current set of studies assessed the relationship between decision-making and two types of
prosociality (cooperation and generosity), but in each study willingness to give up or keep
money was used as a dependent variable. It is still possible that other forms of prosociality are
not affected by decision-time in the same way monetary decisions are affected by decision-time.
Perhaps, for instance, the prospect of gaining or losing money activates a stronger selfish
impulse than the prospect of giving up one’s time and/or expending effort, and so if – for
instance – willingness to help others was used as a measure of prosociality decision-time would
not have as strong of an effect on prosociality. Thus, a future line of research that would help test
the generalizability of the studies reported here is one in which the relationship between
deliberation and peoples willingness to volunteer their time to help others is assessed.
Second, all of these studies were run on AMT. Studies suggest that in general research
conducted on AMT is as valid as research conducted offline (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling,
2011; Horton & Chilton, 2010; Paolacci, Chandler, & Ipeirotis, 2010), and as Rand et al.(2012)
found, there does not seem to be any difference between the results of research involving
ON SECOND THOUGHT 34
economic decision-making games on AMT or offline. However, in the future it would be useful
to ensure that the results I report here generalize to non-AMT samples.
Future Directions
The results of the nine studies reported in this paper suggest that in general the human
impulse is to act relatively selfishly, but it remains unclear whether this is true for everyone or
only for most people. In other words, to what degree are there individual differences in people’s
default tendency to be selfish or prosocial, and to what degree are there individual differences in
the degree to which deliberation influences prosociality? As was previously mentioned, Epley
and Caruso (2004) have theorized that selfishness is the default for all humans because (a)
everyone automatically encodes perceptual information according to their own perspective (i.e.,
their egocentric perspective), (b) this information is then almost always automatically evaluated
as good or bad, and (c) moral judgments derive from these “good” versus “bad” evaluations. In
the future it would be interesting to determine how often exceptions to this general pattern can be
found.
Second, it remains unclear why increased decision-time seems to increase prosociality. In
previous studies, decision-time has been used as a measure of deliberation (Rand et al., 2012);
researchers have considered high decision-time to be an indicator of high deliberation and low
decision-time to be an indicator of low deliberation. However, there are multiple reasons why
decision-time may influence behavior. For instance, when decision-time is experimentally
constrained (as was the case in Study 7), shorter decision-time might influence behavior because
of its association with stress and change in affect (Maule & Hockey, 1993). Thus, a useful line of
future research would be to investigate why increases in decision-time seem to generally increase
prosociality.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 35
Finally, if in general people’s impulse is to act selfishly, why do people then correct for
this default? Research on moral identity (i.e., the degree to which people consider their level of
morality to be central to their self-concept) suggests that people might correct for their default
egoism because most people strongly desire to be able to see themselves as moral (Aquino &
Reed, 2002). However, if egocentrism has as strong and as automatic of an effect on moral
decision-making as Epley and Caruso (2004) suspect, people should actually see their default
decision as the morally correct decision, and thus the desire to see one’s self as moral should not
cause a person’s choice of action (selfish or prosocial) to change. Resolving this theoretical
conflict might not only help delineate the mechanisms that explain why deliberation causes
people to act more prosocially, it might also help determine the importance (and possibly the
limitations) of moral motivational factors such as moral identity centrality.
Conclusion
The generalizability of research that utilizes economic games is questionable (Winking &
Mizer, 2013), and the current research suggests that this is especially true when economic games
are used as assessments of prosociality. It might sometimes be useful to use classic economic
games such as Prisoners’ Dilemma games and Public Goods games to assess prosociality, but
these games were not designed to assess prosociality or selflessness, nor should psychologists
expect them to strongly assess these constructs. The current studies should therefore serve as a
cautionary tale for researchers considering using decisions on classic economic games as
measures of generosity, selfishness, cooperation, and prosociality in general. Though these
decisions might be partly influenced by people’s desire to perform good deeds, they also appear
to be highly influenced by more nefarious (or at least morally-neutral) motives.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 36
This characteristic of economic games helps explain the divide between the two
conflicting lines of research on the relationship between decision-time and prosociality. In line
with recent research that suggests that increased decision-time reduces prosociality (Rand et al.,
2012), the current research suggests that this is likely to sometimes be the case, but only in very
specific situations: namely, when prosociality is largely driven by egoistic motives (as appears to
be the case in traditional Prisoners’ Dilemma games and Public Goods games). But in line with
research that suggests that people’s impulses are relatively selfish (DeWall, Baumeister, Galliott,
& Maner, 2008; Martinsson, Myrseth and Wollbrant, 2011) , increased decision-time seems to
generally increase prosociality.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 37
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ON SECOND THOUGHT 41
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ON SECOND THOUGHT 42
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-1 -.75 -0.5 -.25 0 .25 .5 .75 1
Not Expected Direction Expected Direction
Figure 1. Forest plot of effect sizes (Pearson’s r-correlations) and confidence intervals of both conditions in studies 1-6 as well as overall effect
size (average Pearson’s r-correlation). Lines on individual studies represent 95% confidence intervals of individual study effects. Width of
diamond indicates 95% confidence interval of meta-analytic effect.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 43
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Not Expected Direction Expected Direction
Figure 2. Forest plot of effect sizes (Pearson’s r-correlations) and confidence intervals of combined conditions in studies 1-6 as well as overall
effect size (average Pearson’s r-correlation). Lines on individual studies represent 95% confidence intervals of individual study effects. Width of
diamond indicates 95% confidence interval of meta-analytic effect.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 44
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Not Expected Direction Expected Direction
Figure 3. Forest plot of effect sizes (Pearson’s r-correlations) and confidence intervals of control conditions in studies 1-6 as well as overall
effect size (average Pearson’s r-correlation). Lines on individual studies represent 95% confidence intervals of individual study effects. Width of
diamond indicates 95% confidence interval of meta-analytic effect.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 45
Cooperate Defect
Cooperate $0.50/$0.50 $0.00/$0.70
Defect $0.70/$0.00 $0.30/$0.30
Figure 4. Payout structure for Traditional condition (Study 7).
ON SECOND THOUGHT 46
Self/Partner
Cooperate $0.50/$0.50
Defect $0.70/$0.30
Figure 5. Payout structure for Adapted condition (Study 7).
ON SECOND THOUGHT 47
Figure 6. Percent of participants who cooperated, by condition (Study 7).
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1 2 3 4
Percent Cooperated
Traditional/ Traditional/ Adapted/ Adapted/
Time Constraint Time Delay Time Constraint Time Delay
ON SECOND THOUGHT 48
Figure 7. Relationship between decision-time and money placed in pot (Study 8)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1 2 3 4
Dollars Placed in Pot
Time (log10 transformed)
Traditional PGG
Adapted Condition
.5 1 1.5 2
ON SECOND THOUGHT 49
Appendix A
Study 1 Materials
(Moral Assessment Condition Only)
Imagine for a moment that you were given a random chance to win $50, but before you were told
whether you won the money or not you were also given the chance to give $30 of this money to a
charity of your choice if you were to win it.
If you were given this option, how morally bad would it be to keep all the money for yourself?
-It would be extremely morally bad to keep all the money (1)
-It would be very morally bad to keep all the money (2)
-It would be somewhat morally bad to keep all the money (3)
-It would be slightly morally bad to keep all the money (4)
-It would not be morally bad to keep all the money (5)
If you were given this option, how selfish would it be to keep all the money for yourself?
-It would be extremely selfish to keep all the money (1)
-It would be very selfish to keep all the money (2)
-It would be somewhat selfish to keep all the money (3)
-It would be slightly selfish to keep all the money (4)
-It would not be selfish to keep all the money (5)
(Moral Assessment Condition and Neutral Condition)
Actual Opportunity to Win $50 and/or Give $30 to Charity
In a little bit we will give you a real chance to win a $50 bonus and we will also give you the
option to give $30 of your $50 bonus to a charity of your choice if you are chosen as the winner
of the $50 bonus. If you choose to give $30 of your bonus money to charity, we will ask you to
note what charity you want this money to go to if you win. If you choose to keep the money we
will place the money in your MTURK account.
***We promise that we are in no way lying about this***
----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
Now please make your actual decision.
If you win the $50, should we give you the whole $50 or should we give you $20 and give $30 to
the charity of your choice?
-Give the whole 50 dollars to me (1)
-Give 30 dollars to charity and 20 dollars to me (2)
ON SECOND THOUGHT 50
Appendix B
Study 3 Materials
(“Self” Condition)
Imagine for a moment that you were given a random chance to win $50, but before you were told
whether you won the money or not you were also given the chance to give $30 of this money to a
charity of your choice if you were to win it.
Thus, before you found out if you won the $50 you were asked to decide whether you would
keep all $50 for yourself or give $30 to charity (and keep $20 for yourself) if you won.
If you were given this option, how morally bad would it be for you to decide ahead of time to
keep all the money for yourself if you won?
-Extremely morally bad (1)
-Very morally bad (2)
-Somewhat morally bad (3)
-Slightly morally bad (4)
-Not at all morally bad (5)
If you were given this option, how selfish would it be for you to decide ahead of time to keep all
the money for yourself if you won?
-Extremely selfish (1)
-Very selfish (2)
-Somewhat selfish (3)
-Slightly selfish (4)
-Not at all selfish (5)
If you were given this option, to what extent would it be the morally right decision for you to
decide ahead of time to give $30 of the money to charity if you won?
-It would be extremely morally right (1)
-It would be very morally right (2)
-It would be somewhat morally right (3)
-It would be slightly morally right (4)
-It would not be a morally right decision (5)
If you were given this option, to what extent would it be the morally wrong decision for you to
decide ahead of time to keep all the money for yourself if you won?
-It would be extremely morally wrong (1)
-It would be very morally wrong (2)
-It would be somewhat morally wrong (3)
-It would be slightly morally wrong (4)
ON SECOND THOUGHT 51
-It would not be a morally wrong decision (5)
(“Other” Condition)
Actual Opportunity to Win $50 and/or Give $30 to Charity
In a little bit we will give you a real chance to win a $50 bonus and we will also give you the
option to give $30 of your $50 bonus to a charity of your choice if you are chosen as the winner
of the $50 bonus. If you choose to give $30 of your bonus money to charity, we will ask you to
note what charity you want this money to go to if you win. If you choose to keep the money we
will place the money in your MTURK account.
***We promise that we are in no way lying about this***
----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
Now please make your actual decision.
If you win the $50, should we give you the whole $50 or should we give you $20 and give $30 to
the charity of your choice?
-Give the whole 50 dollars to me (1)
-Give 30 dollars to charity and 20 dollars to me (2)
ON SECOND THOUGHT 52
Appendix C
Study 4 Materials
(Temptation Condition)
Imagine we gave you $50 that you could ONLY spend ON YOURSELF and that you must spend
RIGHT AWAY; therefore, imagine that you COULD NOT SAVE this money. So, for instance,
pretend you CANNOT spend this money on presents for others or to save up for a car. However,
you CAN use the money to - for instance - buy movies or movie tickets, buy video games or
games for your phone, buy a new phone, buy a whole bunch of tasty food, buy new
clothes/shoes, etc.
We’d like to hear about what you think would be the most enjoyable way to spend this $50 and
why spending your $50 in this way would be a really fun way to spend it.
(Please do your best to write for at least three minutes)
How would you spend this $50 in order to get the most enjoyment out of it? REMEMBER:
YOU MUST SPEND IT ON YOURSELF, AND YOU CANNOT SAVE
IT.___________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Write about why this would be a fun way to spend your
$50.__________________________________________________________________________
ON SECOND THOUGHT 53
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Take about 30 seconds and imagine the positive emotion or emotions you would feel as a result
of spending your money this way. Then, write about the positive emotion or emotions you would
feel as a result of spending $50 this
way.__________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
(Both Temptation Condition and No Temptation Condition)
On a scale from 0-100, where 0 = not at all and 100 = more than anything else in the world, how
much do you want $50 right now?
Use the slider to the right to indicate how much you want $50.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
(Both Temptation Condition and No Temptation Condition)
Now imagine for a moment that you were given a random chance to win $50, but before you
were told whether you won the money or not you were also given the chance to give some or all
of this money to a charity of your choice if you were to win it.
-If you were given this option, in order for you to be acting in a morally good manner, at least
what amount of the $50 would you need to agree to give to a charity of your choice if you were
to win?
(feel free to choose any amount between 0 and 50)
Use the slider to the right to choose the number of dollars that you would need to agree to give
away in order to be acting in a morally good manner:
-If you were given this option, how much of the $50 - if any at all - should you agree to give to a
charity of your choice if you were to win?
(feel free to choose any amount between 0 and 50)
______ Use the slider to the right to choose the number of dollars you should agree to give to the
charity of your choice if you win:
ON SECOND THOUGHT 54
-If you were given this option, how much money - if any at all - would it be morally acceptable
for you to decide to keep for yourself if you were to win it?
(feel free to choose any amount between 0 and 50)
Use the slider to the right to choose the number of dollars that it would be morally acceptable for
you to keep:
----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
Actual Opportunity to Give Up to $50 to Charity
Today we are actually giving you a chance to win a $50 bonus and we are also actually giving
you the option to give some or all of your $50 bonus to a charity of your choice if you are chosen
as the winner of the $50 bonus. In what follows we will ask you how much of the $50 bonus - if
any at all - you choose to give to a charity of your choice if you are randomly selected as the
winner of this money.
VERY IMPORTANT: We promise that we are in no way lying about this.
Now we'd like you to make your actual decision.
Below, please indicate how much of the $50 bonus - if any at all - you would like to give to a
charity of your choice if you are randomly selected as the winner of the $50 bonus.
If you choose to give money to charity, on the next page you can note what charity you would
like to give your money to:
ON SECOND THOUGHT 55
Appendix D
Study 7 Materials
(Traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition Information)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choices both members of the pair make in what we call 'The Money Game.' In 'The
Money Game' you must choose between cooperating with the other person in your group or not
cooperating with them, without knowing what the other person in your group has chosen or will
choose.
Here are the rules:
-If you and your partner both decide to cooperate, you will each receive $0.50 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you and your partner both decide not to cooperate, you will each receive $0.30 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you decide to cooperate and your partner decides not to cooperate, you will get nothing and
your partner will get $0.70 (if your pair is randomly selected).
-If you decide not to cooperate and your partner decides to cooperate, you will get $0.70 and
your partner will get nothing (if your pair is randomly selected).”
(Adapted Condition Information)
Please re-read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choices both members of the pair make in what we call 'The Money Game.' In 'The
Money Game' you must choose between cooperating with the other person in your group or not
ON SECOND THOUGHT 56
cooperating with them, without knowing what the other person in your group has chosen or will
choose.
Here are the rules:
-If you and your partner both decide to cooperate, you will each receive $0.50 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you and your partner both decide not to cooperate, you will each receive $0.30 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you decide to cooperate and your partner decides not to cooperate, you will get nothing and
your partner will get $0.70 (if your pair is randomly selected).
-If you decide not to cooperate and your partner decides to cooperate, you will get $0.70 and
your partner will get nothing (if your pair is randomly selected)."
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition Information)
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, if you both decided to cooperate and your pair was randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing
In this situation, if you both decided not to cooperate and your pair was randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing
In this situation, if you decided to cooperate, your partner decided not to cooperate, and your pair
was randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing
In this situation, if you decided not to cooperate, your partner decided to cooperate, and your pair
was randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
ON SECOND THOUGHT 57
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing
To what extent do you understand the rules of "The Money Game":
-I completely understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I mostly understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I sort of understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I don't really understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I don't at all understand the rules of "The Money Game"
(Adapted Condition Information)
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, if you were assigned to be Player A and decided to cooperate and your pair was
randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30 (1)
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50 (2)
-you would get $0.30 and your partner would get $0.70 (3)
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing (4)
In this situation, if you were assigned to be Player A and decided not to cooperate and your pair
was randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30 (1)
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50 (2)
-you would get $0.30 and your partner would get $0.70 (3)
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get $0.30 (4)
To what extent do you understand the rules of "The Money Game":
-I completely understand the rules of "The Money Game" (1)
-I mostly understand the rules of "The Money Game" (2)
-I sort of understand the rules of "The Money Game" (3)
-I don't really understand the rules of "The Money Game" (4)
-I don't at all understand the rules of "The Money Game" (5)
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Time Constraint Condition)
ON SECOND THOUGHT 58
VERY IMPORTANT: you only have 15 seconds to answer the question on the next page. There
will be a timer that counts down the amount of time you have left. Press the next button when
you are ready.
(Time Delay Condition)
VERY IMPORTANT: you will not be able to move past the next page until at least 30 seconds
pass. There will be a timer that counts down the amount of time you have left before you can
move to the next page. Press the next button when you are ready.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Time Constraint Condition)
Now we're giving you the chance to actually play "The Money Game." The rules are the same as
the rules you just read, but now your decision will actually influence how much money you
receive if your pair is chosen.
PLEASE NOTE: you only have 15 seconds to make this decision, so hurry up!!!
-I choose to cooperate
-I choose not to cooperate
(Time Delay Condition)
Now we're giving you the chance to actually play "The Money Game." The rules are the same as
the rules you just read, but now your decision will actually influence how much money you
receive if your pair is chosen.
PLEASE NOTE: you must wait at least 30 seconds before you can continue to the next page, so
take your time!!!
-I choose to cooperate
-I choose not to cooperate
----------------------------------------------------Page Break----------------------------------------------
When it comes to politics, do you usually think of yourself as liberal, moderate, conservative, or
something else?
-Very Liberal
-Liberal
-Slightly Liberal
-Moderate/middle-of-the-road
-Slightly Conservative
-Conservative
-Very Conservative
-Don't know/not political
ON SECOND THOUGHT 59
-Libertarian
-Other
To what extent is the following statement true of you? "My religious beliefs lie behind my whole
approach to life."
-Very true of me
-Very untrue of me
-True of me
-Somewhat true of me
-Somewhat untrue of me
-Untrue of me
What is your gender?
-Male
-Female
How old are you? _____
ON SECOND THOUGHT 60
Appendix E
Study 8 Materials
(Traditional Public Goods Game Condition)
Bonus Money
You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also receive
bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of the
scenario described on the next page. The decision you make in this scenario will influence
(emphasis added) the amount of bonus money you receive, so it is very important that you read
the instructions thoroughly. If you earn bonus money, the amount of bonus money you earn will
be placed in your MTURK account.
(Adapted Public Goods Game Condition)
Bonus Money
You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also receive
bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of the
scenario described on the next page. The decision you make in this scenario will determine
(emphasis added) the amount of bonus money you receive, so it is very important that you read
the instructions thoroughly. If you earn bonus money, the amount of bonus money you earn will
be placed in your MTURK account.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Traditional Public Goods Game Condition)
You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a “money pot.” Any bonus money you place in
this “money pot” will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among you and three
other people who use this website.
Similarly, if any of these other people decide to put some or all of their bonus money into the
“money pot” this money will be multiplied by two and divided evenly among you and the three
other people.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only continue
to the next page when you know the rules.
(Adapted Public Goods Game Condition)
You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a “money pot.” Any bonus money you place in
ON SECOND THOUGHT 61
this “money pot” will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among four other people
who use this website.
Therefore, the money you donate will be multiplied and given to four people, but you will not
get any of it back.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only continue
to the next page when you know the rules.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Both Conditions)
PLEASE NOTE: On the next page you will decide how much of your bonus money (if any at all)
you will place in the "money pot."
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Both Conditions)
Below, please decide how many cents to place into the "money pot."
$0.00
$0.02
$0.04
$0.06
$0.08
$0.10
$0.12
$0.14
$0.16
$0.18
$0.20
$0.22
$0.24
$0.26
$0.28
$0.30
$0.32
$0.34
$0.36
$0.38
$0.40
ON SECOND THOUGHT 62
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
Now, please answer the following questions about the rules of the game:
How much money should you have put into the money pot in order to ensure the highest amount
of bonus money for the other people affected by your decision?
$0.00
$0.02
$0.04
$0.06
$0.08
$0.10
$0.12
$0.14
$0.16
$0.18
$0.20
$0.22
$0.24
$0.26
$0.28
$0.30
$0.32
$0.34
$0.36
$0.38
$0.40
How much money should you have put into the money pot in order to ensure the highest amount
of bonus money for you?
$0.00
$0.02
$0.04
$0.06
$0.08
$0.10
$0.12
$0.14
$0.16
$0.18
ON SECOND THOUGHT 63
$0.20
$0.22
$0.24
$0.26
$0.28
$0.30
$0.32
$0.34
$0.36
$0.38
$0.40
What were you told would happen to the money you put into the pot?
-It would be doubled and given back to you. Nobody else would get any of the money you
put in the pot.
-It would be doubled and split between you and three other people.
-It would be doubled and split between four other people. You would not get any of the
money back that you put in the pot.
-It would be doubled and given to charity.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
To what extent have you participated in studies like this one before? (i.e. where you choose how
much to keep for yourself versus contributing to benefit others)
Very often
Often
A few times
Once or twice
Never
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
When it comes to politics, do you usually think of yourself as liberal, moderate, conservative, or
something else?
Very Liberal
Liberal
Slightly Liberal
Moderate/middle-of-the-road
Slightly Conservative
Conservative
ON SECOND THOUGHT 64
Very Conservative
Don't know/not political
Libertarian
Other
To what extent is the following statement true of you?" My religious beliefs lie behind my whole
approach to life."
Very true of me
Very untrue of me
True of me
Somewhat true of me
Somewhat untrue of me
Untrue of me
What is your gender?
Male
Female
How old are you?
Currently, what country or countries are you a resident of?
What is your highest education level?
Some High School
Currently in High School
Completed High School
Some College/University
Currently in College/University
Completed College/University
Some Graduate/Professional School
Currently in Graduate/Professional School
Completed Graduate/Professional School
ON SECOND THOUGHT 65
Appendix F
Study 9 Materials
______________________________________________________________________________
(Traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choices both members of the pair make in what we call 'The Money Game.' In 'The
Money Game' you must choose between Option One and Option Two, without knowing what the
other person in your group has chosen or will choose.
Here are the rules:
-If you and your partner both choose Option One, you will each receive $0.50 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you and your partner both choose Option Two, you will each receive $0.30 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you Choose Option One and your partner chooses Option Two, you will get nothing and your
partner will get $0.70 (if your pair is randomly selected).
-If you choose Option Two and your partner chooses Option One, you will get $0.70 and your
partner will get nothing (if your pair is randomly selected)."
(Adapted Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the
questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choice Player A makes in what we call 'The Money Game.' In ‘The Money Game’ you
must choose between Option One and Option Two. Note that Player B's choice does not affect
the game.
Here are the rules:
ON SECOND THOUGHT 66
-If you choose Option One, both players will receive $0.50 (if your pair is randomly selected).
-If you choose Option Two, you will receive $0.70 and the other participant will receive $0.30 (if
your pair is randomly selected)."
____________________________________________________________
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, if you were selected to be Player A, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it
be for you to choose Option One?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, if you were selected to be Player A, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all)
would it be for you to choose Option One?
Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative
In this situation, if you were selected to be Player A, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all)
would it be for you to choose Option Two?
Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative
ON SECOND THOUGHT 67
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Traditional Public Goods Game Condition)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the
questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
Bonus Money
"You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also
receive bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of
the scenario described on the next page.
The decision you make in this scenario will influence the amount of bonus money you receive,
so it is very important that you read the instructions thoroughly. If you earn bonus money, the
amount of bonus money you earn will be placed in your MTURK account."
Please also imagine you are given the following information:
Rules
"You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a "money pot." Any bonus money you place in
this "money pot" will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among you and three
other people who use this website.
Similarly, if any of these other people decide to put some or all of their bonus money into the
"money pot," this money will be multiplied by two and divided evenly among you and the three
other people.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only
continue to the next page when you know the rules."
(Adapted Public Goods Game Condition Information)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the
questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
Bonus Money
"You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also
receive bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of
the scenario described on the next page.
ON SECOND THOUGHT 68
The decision you make in this scenario will determine the amount of bonus money you receive,
so it is very important that you read the instructions thoroughly. If you earn bonus money, the
amount of bonus money you earn will be placed in your MTURK account."
Please also imagine you are given the following information:
Rules
"You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a "money pot." Any bonus money you place in
this "money pot" will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among four other people
who use this website.
Therefore, the money you donate will be multiplied and given to four people, but you will not
get any of it back.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only
continue to the next page when you know the rules.”
(Both Conditions)
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to not put money into the
pot?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to put $0.20 into the pot?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
ON SECOND THOUGHT 69
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to put all $0.40 into the
pot?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to not put
money into the pot?
Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative
In this situation, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to put $0.20 into
the pot?
Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative
In this situation, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to put all $0.40
into the pot?
Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
ON SECOND THOUGHT 70
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative
(Charitable Giving Scenario)
Imagine for a moment that you were given a random chance to win $50, but before you were told
whether you won the money or not you were also given the chance to give some of all of this
money to a charity of your choice if you were to win it.
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to not give any
of the $50 to charity if you won?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to give $25 of
the $50 to charity if you won it?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to give $30 of
the $50 to charity if you won it?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
ON SECOND THOUGHT 71
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to give all of the
$50 to charity if you won it?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
How selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to eat pickles?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
How cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to eat pickles?
Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative
Abstract (if available)
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Meindl, Peter W.
(author)
Core Title
On second thought, people choose to be prosocial
School
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Psychology
Publication Date
10/09/2015
Defense Date
06/09/2013
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
intuitive,OAI-PMH Harvest,prosocial
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Graham, Jesse C. (
committee chair
), Monterosso, John R. (
committee member
), Read, Stephen (
committee member
)
Creator Email
meindl@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-336484
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UC11296376
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336484
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Meindl, Peter W.
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(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
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Tags
intuitive
prosocial