This study investigates whether altruistic sharing in 4- to 6-year-old children, assessed by a dictator game (DG), is related to three measures of executive functioning, that is, inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. We found that children who turned out to be altruistic in the DG performed better on an inhibition task than non-altruists did.
Aguilar-Pardo, D., Martínez-Arias, R. & Colmenares, F. The role of inhibition in young children’s altruistic behaviour. Cogn Process 14, 301–307 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-013-0552-6
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
5
Focusing on dictators with medium or low cognitive ability, the higher the cognitive ability, the lower are both giving probability and amount.
Kazuhito Ogawa, Tetsuya Kawamura, Keiichiro Matsushita,
Effects of cognitive ability and age on giving in dictator game experiments,
Research in Economics,
Volume 74, Issue 4,
2020,
Pages 323-335,
ISSN 1090-9443,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rie.2020.10.002.
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
4
. Working memory did not mediate the relation betweenlanguage and theory of mind, nor did it facilitate later false belie
How language does (and does not) relate to theoryof mind: A longitudinal study of syntax, semantics,working memory and false beliefLance Slade1,2* and Ted Ruffman2,3
Working memory will have higher performance in subjects with better TOM
Working hypothesis
4
These multiple regression analyses indicate that working memory and inhibition make small, overlapping contributions to false-belief performance after accounting for age, but that working memory, as measured in this study, is a somewhat better predictor of false-belief understanding than is inhibition.
Theory of Mind and Executive Function: Working-Memory Capacity and Inhibitory Control as Predictors of False-Belief Task Performance
Brigitte Mutter, Mark B. Alcorn, Marilyn Welsh
Working memory will have higher performance in subjects with better TOM
Working hypothesis
4
The relation between cognitive inhibition and ToM involved a single mediated path, such that cognitive inhibition predicted ToM through working memory. Frontal injury had a direct impact on working memory, which then separately determined ToM performance, the direct single paths between frontal injury and ToM being nonsignificant.
Maureen Dennis , Alba Agostino , Caroline Roncadin & Harvey Levin (2009) Theory ofmind depends on domain-general executive functions of working memory and cognitive inhibition in childrenwith traumatic brain injury, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 31:7, 835-847, DOI:10.1080/13803390802572419
Working memory will have higher performance in subjects with better TOM
Working hypothesis
5
Although second-order syntactic recursion is significantly correlated with the second-order false belief task, results of ordinal logistic regressions revealed that the main predictor of second-order false belief reasoning is complex working memory span. Unlike simple working memory and second-order syntactic recursion tasks, the complex working memory task required processing information serially with additional reasoning demands that require complex working memory strategies.
Arslan B, Hohenberger A, Verbrugge R (2017) Syntactic Recursion Facilitates and Working Memory Predicts Recursive Theory of Mind. PLOS ONE 12(1): e0169510. Working memory will have higher performance in subjects with better TOM
Working hypothesis
6
The ADHD group had a larger discrepancy between ultimatum game and dic-tator game offers than controls, indicating strategic rather than fairness driven decisions.
Decision‑making in social contexts in youth with ADHDIli Ma1,2 · Nanda N. J. Lambregts‑Rommelse2,3 · Jan K. Buitelaar2,3 · Antonius H. N. Cillessen1 · Anouk P. J. Scheres
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
4
In our experiment, subjects played a Önitely repeated multi-player prisonerísdilemma game under two cognitive load treatments. In one treatment, subjects wereplaced under a high cognitive load (given a 7 digit number to recall) and subjects in theother were placed under a low cognitive load (given a 2 digit number). According to twodi§erent measures, we Önd evidence that the low load subjects behaved more strategically.
https://duffy.camden.rutgers.edu/files/2013/11/CogLoad-Sept-2013-Copy.pdf
Higher WM load lead to less cooperative behavior
Working hypothesis
7
Positive interactions were related to improvements on one out of three measures of episodic memory, one out of three measures of working memory, and two out of three measures of processing speed []. One out of three studies reported that negative interactions were related to lower scores on measures of global cognition, episodic memory, semantic memory, working memory, processing speed and visuospatial abilities [, , ] Our finding that social activity benefitted working memory supports research on social working memory (SWM) that describes working memory as essential for navigating the complexities of the social world [], and suggests that this relationship is symbiotic. Kelly, M.E., Duff, H., Kelly, S. et al. The impact of social activities, social networks, social support and social relationships on the cognitive functioning of healthy older adults: a systematic review. Syst Rev 6, 259 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-017-0632-2
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
8
To test whether humans use the kind of cooperative strategies predicted, we asked students to play the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game either continuously or interrupted after each round by a secondary memory task (i.e., playing the game “Memory”) that constrained the students’ working-memory capacity. When playing without interruption, most students used “Pavlovian” strategies, as predicted, for greater memory capacity, and the rest used “generous tit-for-tat” strategies. The proportion of generous tit-for-tat strategies increased when games of Memory interfered with the subjects’ working memory, as predicted. Students who continued to use complex Pavlovian strategies were less successful in the Memory game, but more successful in the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Working memory constrains human cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Manfred Milinski, Claus Wedekind
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 1998, 95 (23) 13755-13758; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.95.23.13755
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
5
We …nd that subjects who perform better on the Math portion of the SAT
are more generous in both the dictator game and the SVO measure. By contrast we …nd
that subjects with a higher GPA are more sel…sh in the dictator game and more generous
according to the SVO.
1. Chen, C.-C., Chiu, I.-M., Smith, J. & Yamada, T. Too smart to be selfish? Measures of cognitive ability, social preferences, and consistency. J. Econ. Behav. Organ. 90, 112–122 (2013).
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
3
The current research has identified and investigated an important aspect of organizational decision making – calculations –
and has consistently shown that it can have unintendedly negative
consequences. After engaging in a calculative task, people in our
experiments were increasingly likely to succumb to the temptations of higher payoffs by acting more selfishly or dishonestly
1. Wang, L., Zhong, C.-B. & Murnighan, J. K. The social and ethical consequences of a calculative mindset. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 125, 39–49 (2014).
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
6
The current research has identified and investigated an important aspect of organizational decision making – calculations –
and has consistently shown that it can have unintendedly negative
consequences. After engaging in a calculative task, people in our
experiments were increasingly likely to succumb to the temptations of higher payoffs by acting more selfishly or dishonestly
1. Wang, L., Zhong, C.-B. & Murnighan, J. K. The social and ethical consequences of a calculative mindset. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 125, 39–49 (2014).
To test whether humans use the kind of cooperative strategies predicted, we asked students to play the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game either continuously or interrupted after each round by a secondary memory task (i.e., playing the game “Memory”) that constrained the students’ working-memory capacity. When playing without interruption, most students used “Pavlovian” strategies, as predicted, for greater memory capacity, and the rest used “generous tit-for-tat” strategies. The proportion of generous tit-for-tat strategies increased when games of Memory interfered with the subjects’ working memory, as predicted. Students who continued to use complex Pavlovian strategies were less successful in the Memory game, but more successful in the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Working memory constrains human cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Manfred Milinski, Claus Wedekind
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 1998, 95 (23) 13755-13758; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.95.23.13755
8
We find that subjects in a high-load
condition are more generous - they more often choose the fair allocation than subjects in a
low-load condition.
1. Schulz, J. F., Fischbacher, U., Thöni, C. & Utikal, V. Affect and fairness: Dictator games under cognitive load. J. Econ. Psychol. 41, 77–87 (2014).
Working memory will have higher performance in altruists
Working hypothesis
6