Styles of Announcing Conciliation

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A total of 48 subjects (24 female and 24 male) participated in 30 trials of a Prisoner's Dilemma game with a simulated other who was 50% cooperative in the first block of 10 trials and 100% cooperative in the third block. Following trial 10, the other sent one of two handwritten notes to the subject, or, in a third condition, sent none. One of the notes said, in effect: "If you cooperate, I will," (the IF-U note) while the other said: "I will cooperate ; it's what we have to do to get our most points," (the GRIT note). As hypothesized, the GRIT approach elicited more cooperation by the subject than the IF-U approach, particularly in the third block where the other was consistently cooperative and most vulnerable. Both notes positively influenced cooperation in comparison with the no-note condition. The results were discussed in terms of the perceptions of intentions created by the two notes and the GRIT proposal in general.

This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit: