RESUMO
The prisoner's dilemma (PD) has been widely adopted by researchers to investigate cooperation among adults and children. However, studies using the PD with children are not as extensive as experiments with adults. The main aim of this work was to introduce and show the feasibility and validity of two digital games with the structural features of a PD (Slingshot Challenge [SC] and Star Mines [SM]) to investigate children's cooperative behavior. In two experiments, 162 children aged 6 to 12 years played SC and SM in different conditions. It was observed that children understood the dynamics of a PD, and were highly motivated to play SC and SM. We found that participants were more cooperative playing SM than SC and cooperated conditionally as well. We also found that sex and first-trial cooperation were associated with higher levels of cooperation. The results support the utility of SC and SM as feasible, reliable, and valid instruments for assessing cooperative behavior in childhood.
Assuntos
Comportamento Cooperativo , Dilema do Prisioneiro , Adulto , Escala de Avaliação Comportamental , Criança , Humanos , PesquisadoresRESUMO
This current study aimed to investigate the influence of empathic feelings on a risky altruistic behavior of young adults. 60 undergraduate students, aged between 18 and 35 years old took part in an experiment in which they had to decide in rather to give or not raffle tickets to an unfamiliar person, after participating of a gambling game. The tickets were gained after a memory quiz. 30 participants were allocated to an experimental condition named "neutral" in which they freely took their distributive decisions, and the other 30 were allocated to an "emotional" condition, in which empathic feelings were induced, by using a video. Results indicated that the participants' sex and the experimental manipulation influenced gambling behavior, allowing the participants to be in the "emotional condition", more prone to altruistic behavior than the participants in the "neutral" condition. Also, the men helped more in a high-cost condition than the women did. These results point that the influence of empathic concern on altruistic behavior in a situation involving risks might be mediated by the sex and the relation between these variables should be better observed in studies on distributive behavior
El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo investigar la influencia de los sentimientos empáticos sobre el comportamiento altruista de jóvenes adultos. 60 estudiantes de 18 a 35 años de edad participaron de un experimento en el que tuvieron que decidir dar o no rifas a una persona desconocida, después de participar en un juego de azar. Los biletes se obtuvieron después de ganar un concurso de memoria. 30 participantes fueron asignados a una condición experimental denominada "neutral", en la cual tomaron libremente sus decisiones distributivas, y los otros 30 fueron asignados a una condición "emocional", durante la cual se indujeron sentimientos empáticos, utilizando un video. Los resultados indicaron que el sexo de los participantes y la manipulación experimental influyó en el comportamiento del juego, dejando a los participantes en la "condición emocional" más propensos al comportamiento altruista que los participantes en la condición "neutral". Además, los hombres ayudaron más en una condición de alto costo que las mujeres. Estos resultados apuntan a que la influencia de la preocupación empática sobre el comportamiento altruista en una situación que implica riesgo, podría estar mediada por el sexo y que las relaciones entre estas variables necesitan ser mejor observadas en estudios sobre el comportamiento distributivo.