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How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?

ABSTRACT: Static networks have been shown to foster cooperation for specific cost-benefit ratios and numbers of connections across a series of interactions. At the same time, psychopathic traits have been discovered to predict defective behaviours in game theory scenarios. This experiment combines these two aspects to investigate how group cooperation can emerge when changing group compositions based on psychopathic traits. We implemented a modified version of the Prisoner's Dilemma game which has been demonstrated theoretically and empirically to sustain a constant level of cooperation over rounds. A sample of 190 undergraduate students played in small groups where the percentage of psychopathic traits in each group was manipulated. Groups entirely composed of low psychopathic individuals were compared with communities with 50% high and 50% low psychopathic players, to observe the behavioural differences at the group level. Results showed a significant divergence of the mean cooperation of the two conditions, regardless of the small range of participants' psychopathy scores. Groups with a large density of high psychopathic subjects cooperated significantly less than groups entirely composed of low psychopathic players, confirming our hypothesis that psychopathic traits affect not only individuals' decisions but also the group behaviour. This experiment highlights how differences in group composition with respect to psychopathic traits can have a significant impact on group dynamics, and it emphasizes the importance of individual characteristics when investigating group behaviours.

SUBMITTER: Testori M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6458404 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?

Testori Martina M Hoyle Rebecca B RB Eisenbarth Hedwig H

Royal Society open science 20190306 3

Static networks have been shown to foster cooperation for specific cost-benefit ratios and numbers of connections across a series of interactions. At the same time, psychopathic traits have been discovered to predict defective behaviours in game theory scenarios. This experiment combines these two aspects to investigate how group cooperation can emerge when changing group compositions based on psychopathic traits. We implemented a modified version of the Prisoner's Dilemma game which has been de ...[more]

PMID: 31031998

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Project description:Cooperation is a relevant and controversial phenomenon in human societies. Indeed, although it is widely recognized essential for tackling social dilemmas, finding suitable policies for promoting cooperation can be arduous and expensive. More often, it is driven by pre-established schemas based on norms and punishments. To overcome this paradigm, we highlight the interplay between the influence of social interactions on networks and spontaneous self-regulating mechanisms on individuals behavior. We show that the presence of these mechanisms in a prisoner's dilemma game, may oppose the willingness of individuals to defect, thus allowing them to behave cooperatively, while interacting with others and taking conflicting decisions over time. These results are obtained by extending the Evolutionary Game Equations over Networks to account for self-regulating mechanisms. Specifically, we prove that players may partially or fully cooperate whether self-regulating mechanisms are sufficiently stronger than social pressure. The proposed model can explain unconditional cooperation (strong self-regulation) and unconditional defection (weak self-regulation). For intermediate self-regulation values, more complex behaviors are observed, such as mutual defection, recruiting (cooperate if others cooperate), exploitation of cooperators (defect if others cooperate) and altruism (cooperate if others defect). These phenomena result from dynamical transitions among different game structures, according to changes of system parameters and cooperation of neighboring players. Interestingly, we show that the topology of the network of connections among players is crucial when self-regulation, and the associated costs, are reasonably low. In particular, a population organized on a random network with a Scale-Free distribution of connections is more cooperative than on a network with an Erdös-Rényi distribution, and, in turn, with a regular one. These results highlight that social diversity, encoded within heterogeneous networks, is more effective for promoting cooperation.

Dataset Information

How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?

Publications

How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?

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