Using the Prisoner’s Dilemma Task to Examine the Cooperative and Social Effectiveness Hypotheses of the General Factor Personality

Abstract

The prisoner’s dilemma was used to examine the cooperative and social effectiveness hypotheses of the General Factor of Personality (GFP). Consistent with both hypotheses participants who cooperated in the initial round scored higher on the GFP. However, this relationship was attenuated when controlling for life history strategy. Consistent with the social effectiveness hypothesis, a second round of the prisoner’s dilemma revealed that participants higher in GFP were more likely to follow a tit-for-tat strategy and this finding remained when controlling for life history strategy. The results show the potential of using games to examine the nature of the GFP and predictions from life history theory. Future research could vary elements of the methods such as playing more iterations of the game and could also utilize different games.