IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0069565.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exaggerated Intergroup Bias in Economical Decision Making Games: Differential Effects of Primary and Secondary Psychopathic Traits

Author

Listed:
  • Steven M Gillespie
  • Ian J Mitchell
  • Ian Johnson
  • Ellen Dawson
  • Anthony R Beech

Abstract

Psychopathic personality traits are linked with selfish and non-cooperative responses during economical decision making games. However, the possibility that these responses may vary when responding to members of the in-group and the out-group has not yet been explored. We aimed to examine the effects of primary (selfish, uncaring) and secondary (impulsive, irresponsible) psychopathic personality traits on the responses of non-offending participants to the in-group and the out-group (defined in terms of affiliation to a UK University) across a series of economical decision making games. We asked a total of 60 participants to act as the proposer in both the dictator game and the ultimatum game. We found that across both tasks, those who scored highly for secondary psychopathic traits showed an elevated intergroup bias, making more generous offers toward members of the in-group relative to the out-group. An exaggerated intergroup bias may therefore represent a motivational factor for the antisocial behavior of those with elevated secondary psychopathic traits.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven M Gillespie & Ian J Mitchell & Ian Johnson & Ellen Dawson & Anthony R Beech, 2013. "Exaggerated Intergroup Bias in Economical Decision Making Games: Differential Effects of Primary and Secondary Psychopathic Traits," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-1, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0069565
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069565
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069565
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069565&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0069565?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul J Zak & Angela A Stanton & Sheila Ahmadi, 2007. "Oxytocin Increases Generosity in Humans," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(11), pages 1-5, November.
    2. James Andreoni & John Miller, 2002. "Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 737-753, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D. & Combs, T. Dalton & Kodaverdian, Niree, 2019. "The development of consistent decision-making across economic domains," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 217-240.
    2. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "The many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1025-1069.
    3. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    4. Moreno, Alejandro & Viianto, Lari & García, Daniel, 2019. "Emotions of Altruism, Envy and Guilt: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 94096, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Paskalev, Zdravko & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2017. "A theory of outsourced fundraising: Why dollars turn into “Pennies for Charity”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1-18.
    6. Ubeda, Paloma, 2014. "The consistency of fairness rules: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 88-100.
    7. Frank Cowell & Marc Fleurbaey & Bertil Tungodden, 2015. "The tyranny puzzle in social preferences: an empirical investigation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(4), pages 765-792, December.
    8. Cui, Chi & Dai, Ming & Alevy, Jonathan, 2025. "The Measurement of Changes in Distributional Preferences," Working Papers 0759, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    9. Stephen Leider & Markus M. Möbius & Tanya Rosenblat & Quoc-Anh Do, 2010. "What Do We Expect from Our Friends?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(1), pages 120-138, March.
    10. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    11. Korenok, Oleg & Millner, Edward L. & Razzolini, Laura, 2013. "Impure altruism in dictators' giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-8.
    12. Anna Louisa Merkel & Johannes Lohse, 2019. "Is fairness intuitive? An experiment accounting for subjective utility differences under time pressure," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(1), pages 24-50, March.
    13. Bartczak, Anna, 2015. "The role of social and environmental attitudes in non-market valuation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 357-365.
    14. Daniel Woods & Maroš Servátka, 2019. "Nice to you, nicer to me: Does self-serving generosity diminish the reciprocal response?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 506-529, June.
    15. Pamela Jakiela & Edward Miguel & Vera Velde, 2015. "You’ve earned it: estimating the impact of human capital on social preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 385-407, September.
    16. Cherchye, Laurens & Chiappori, Pierre-André & De Rock, Bram & Ringdal, Charlotte & Vermeulen, Frederic, 2021. "Feed the Children," IZA Discussion Papers 14687, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Gauriot, Romain & Heger, Stephanie A. & Slonim, Robert, 2020. "Altruism or diminishing marginal utility?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 24-48.
    18. Christian Korth, 2009. "Reciprocity—An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Fairness in Bargaining and Markets, chapter 0, pages 35-55, Springer.
    19. Binmore, Ken & McCarthy, John & Ponti, Giovanni & Samuelson, Larry & Shaked, Avner, 2002. "A Backward Induction Experiment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 48-88, May.
    20. Gani Aldashev & Esteban Jaimovich & Thierry Verdier, 2018. "Small is Beautiful: Motivational Allocation in the Nonprofit Sector," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 730-780.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0069565. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.