The Effect of the Quantity and Distribution of Teammates’ Tendency Toward Self-Interest and Altruism on Individual Decision-Making

Abstract

Previous studies have explored the impact of the cost ratio of individual solutions versus collective solutions on people’s cooperation tendency in the presence of individual solutions. This study further explored the impact of team credibility on people’s propensity to cooperate in the presence of individual solutions. Study 1 investigated the influence of different level of altruistic tendencies or the self-interest tendencies of teammates on participants’ decision-making. Study 2 explored the influence of the distribution of altruistic tendencies or self-interest tendencies on participants’ decision-making. The results of Study 1 showed that the proportion of participants who chose the collective solution increased with an increase in the altruistic tendencies of the team. When the altruistic tendencies of the teammates reached a certain value, the proportion of participants taking the collective solution showed a trend to stabilize. Furthermore, the proportion of participants who chose the individual solution increased with the increase in the self-interest tendencies of the team. When the self-interest tendencies of the teammates reached a certain value, the individual solution was stably adopted. The results of Study 2 showed that with the total altruistic tendency remaining unchanged, the more altruistic group members that altruistic tendencies were allocated to, the higher a participant’s level of trust in the team would be, which showed the decentralized effect of altruistic tendencies. In the case that the total self-interest tendency was unchanged, the fewer self-interest group members the self-interest tendencies were allocated to, the higher a participant’s level of trust in the team would be, which showed the convergent effect of self-interest tendencies.