Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation

The present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimu...

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Main Authors: Laura Mieth, Raoul Bell, Axel Buchner
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-08-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01312/full
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author Laura Mieth
Raoul Bell
Axel Buchner
author_facet Laura Mieth
Raoul Bell
Axel Buchner
author_sort Laura Mieth
collection DOAJ
description The present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate expectations about the future behavior of the partners which were either violated or confirmed by the partners’ cheating or cooperation during the game. In a source memory test, participants were required to recognize the partners and to classify them as cheaters or cooperators. A multinomial model was used to disentangle item memory, source memory and guessing processes. We found an expectancy-congruent bias towards guessing that trustworthy-looking partners were more likely to be associated with cooperation than untrustworthy-looking partners. Source memory was enhanced for cheating that violated the participants’ positive expectations about trustworthy-looking partners. We were interested in whether or not this expectancy-violation effect—that helps to revise unjustified expectations about trustworthy-looking partners—depends on cognitive load induced via a secondary continuous reaction time task. Although this secondary task interfered with working memory processes in a validation study, both the expectancy-congruent guessing bias as well as the expectancy-violation effect were obtained with and without cognitive load. These findings support the hypothesis that the expectancy-violation effect is due to a simple mechanism that does not rely on demanding elaborative processes. We conclude that most cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation presumably operate automatically so that they remain unaffected by cognitive load.□
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spelling doaj.art-43c8b56ab4534570947b352517f7cb822022-12-21T18:47:02ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782016-08-01710.3389/fpsyg.2016.01312211182Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperationLaura Mieth0Raoul Bell1Axel Buchner2Heinrich Heine UniversityHeinrich Heine UniversityHeinrich Heine UniversityThe present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate expectations about the future behavior of the partners which were either violated or confirmed by the partners’ cheating or cooperation during the game. In a source memory test, participants were required to recognize the partners and to classify them as cheaters or cooperators. A multinomial model was used to disentangle item memory, source memory and guessing processes. We found an expectancy-congruent bias towards guessing that trustworthy-looking partners were more likely to be associated with cooperation than untrustworthy-looking partners. Source memory was enhanced for cheating that violated the participants’ positive expectations about trustworthy-looking partners. We were interested in whether or not this expectancy-violation effect—that helps to revise unjustified expectations about trustworthy-looking partners—depends on cognitive load induced via a secondary continuous reaction time task. Although this secondary task interfered with working memory processes in a validation study, both the expectancy-congruent guessing bias as well as the expectancy-violation effect were obtained with and without cognitive load. These findings support the hypothesis that the expectancy-violation effect is due to a simple mechanism that does not rely on demanding elaborative processes. We conclude that most cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation presumably operate automatically so that they remain unaffected by cognitive load.□http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01312/fullTrustDual tasksource memoryWorking memory loadSocial cooperation
spellingShingle Laura Mieth
Raoul Bell
Axel Buchner
Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation
Frontiers in Psychology
Trust
Dual task
source memory
Working memory load
Social cooperation
title Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation
title_full Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation
title_fullStr Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation
title_full_unstemmed Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation
title_short Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation
title_sort cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation
topic Trust
Dual task
source memory
Working memory load
Social cooperation
url http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01312/full
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