Towards Teamwork:  Agreeableness and its Role on  Cooperation Under Inequality

Understanding cooperation is important since it leads to the preservation of and contribution to public goods. Global challenges such as climate change are mitigated by cooperation. Research showed that variability in cooperation was partly linked to personality traits with agreeableness and cooperation being positively associated. While cooperation is typically studied within Prisoner’s Dilemma paradigms with symmetric payoff structures, real-world contexts are often characterized by inequality. This 2 (role: advantaged/disadvantaged) × 3 (ingroup, outgroup, stranger) within-subjects study (N = 199) examined the association between agreeableness and cooperation under inequality. Inequality was introduced by assigning different returns related to cooperation. Results showed no significant association between agreeableness and cooperation. Furthermore, findings showed no significant interaction between participants’ roles and agreeableness in predicting cooperation. Additional...Show moreUnderstanding cooperation is important since it leads to the preservation of and contribution to public goods. Global challenges such as climate change are mitigated by cooperation. Research showed that variability in cooperation was partly linked to personality traits with agreeableness and cooperation being positively associated. While cooperation is typically studied within Prisoner’s Dilemma paradigms with symmetric payoff structures, real-world contexts are often characterized by inequality. This 2 (role: advantaged/disadvantaged) × 3 (ingroup, outgroup, stranger) within-subjects study (N = 199) examined the association between agreeableness and cooperation under inequality. Inequality was introduced by assigning different returns related to cooperation. Results showed no significant association between agreeableness and cooperation. Furthermore, findings showed no significant interaction between participants’ roles and agreeableness in predicting cooperation. Additional analyses revealed a significant, positive correlation between agreeableness and cooperation within advantaged roles but no significant correlation within disadvantaged roles. Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.Show less

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Towards Teamwork: Agreeableness and its Role on Cooperation Under Inequality