The effect of personality traits and emotions on social motives - A Game Theoretic Approach

Abstract

This research has aimed to elucidate the role of social motives in game theory. This was done by using two different game theoretical experiments; the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Decomposed Games. The main question that has been raised in this area of research, is why do individuals cooperate if they could make themselves better off by not cooperating? The three possible explanations for cooperative behaviour in simple economic games, explored in this research, are empathy, levels of psychopathic personality traits and emotions. Firstly, the results have shown that cooperation is higher among individuals who feel empathy for their opponent than among individuals who feel no empathy for their opponent. Secondly, against expectations, the results have shown that cooperation appears to be higher among individuals with higher levels of psychopathic personality traits than among individuals who with lower levels of psychopathic personality traits. And lastly, this research has found no relationship between mood and the level of cooperation.