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Data for 'How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?'

Data for 'How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?'
Data for 'How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?'
Static networks have been shown to foster cooperation for specific cost-benefit ratios and numbers of connections across a series of interactions. At the same time, psychopathic traits have been discovered to predict defective behaviours in game theory scenarios. This experiment combines these two aspects to investigate how group cooperation can emerge when changing group compositions based on psychopathic traits. We implemented a modified version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game which has been demonstrated theoretically and empirically to sustain a constant level of cooperation over rounds. A sample of 190 undergraduate students played in small groups where the percentage of psychopathic traits in each group was manipulated. Groups entirely composed of low psychopathic individuals were compared to communities with 50% high and 50% low psychopathic players, to observe the behavioural differences at the group level. Results showed a significant divergence of the mean cooperation of the two conditions, regardless of the small range of participants’ psychopathy scores. Groups with a large density of high psychopathic subjects cooperated significantly less than groups entirely composed of low psychopathic players, confirming our hypothesis that psychopathic traits affect not only individuals’ decisions but also the group behaviour. This experiment highlights how differences in group composition with respect to psychopathic traits can have a significant impact on group dynamics, and it emphasizes the importance of individual characteristics when investigating group behaviours. The dataset supports the paper 'How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?' in Royal Society Open Science
prisoner's dilemma game, Evolutionary Game Theory, Psychopathy (PPI-R), Group differences
DRYAD
Testori, Martina
c9862489-e3aa-4cc2-b5d3-62140f416d64
Testori, Martina
c9862489-e3aa-4cc2-b5d3-62140f416d64

(2019) Data for 'How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?'. DRYAD doi:10.5061/dryad.ms57853 [Dataset]

Record type: Dataset

Abstract

Static networks have been shown to foster cooperation for specific cost-benefit ratios and numbers of connections across a series of interactions. At the same time, psychopathic traits have been discovered to predict defective behaviours in game theory scenarios. This experiment combines these two aspects to investigate how group cooperation can emerge when changing group compositions based on psychopathic traits. We implemented a modified version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game which has been demonstrated theoretically and empirically to sustain a constant level of cooperation over rounds. A sample of 190 undergraduate students played in small groups where the percentage of psychopathic traits in each group was manipulated. Groups entirely composed of low psychopathic individuals were compared to communities with 50% high and 50% low psychopathic players, to observe the behavioural differences at the group level. Results showed a significant divergence of the mean cooperation of the two conditions, regardless of the small range of participants’ psychopathy scores. Groups with a large density of high psychopathic subjects cooperated significantly less than groups entirely composed of low psychopathic players, confirming our hypothesis that psychopathic traits affect not only individuals’ decisions but also the group behaviour. This experiment highlights how differences in group composition with respect to psychopathic traits can have a significant impact on group dynamics, and it emphasizes the importance of individual characteristics when investigating group behaviours. The dataset supports the paper 'How group composition affects cooperation in fixed networks: can psychopathic traits influence group dynamics?' in Royal Society Open Science

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More information

Published date: 2019
Keywords: prisoner's dilemma game, Evolutionary Game Theory, Psychopathy (PPI-R), Group differences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 428352
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/428352
PURE UUID: 46d5aa7a-e2ac-40a1-ad5f-92826d3eca7d

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 21 Feb 2019 17:31
Last modified: 12 Nov 2023 14:15

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Contributors

Data Collector: Martina Testori

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