The role of Computer-Based Content in Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Decision-Making

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Harley,Heidi

Keywords

Decision Making, Computer, Context, Psychology, CMC, Social, Social Value Orientation, Ring Measure

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

The tendency to choose either to cooperate or compete can be affected by many factors, including one�s individual predisposition, the situational significance of the decision, and the context in which one makes the decision. Increasingly, collaboration and interaction via the internet are becoming more commonplace. The current study seeks to determine whether the context of a computer-based interaction- explicitly cooperative or explicitly competitive- can affect an individual�s choice to cooperate or compete when that individual is no longer immersed in that context, or, in other words, has re-entered �real life�, similarly to how context can affect decision making in offline scenarios. In this study, nearly all participants reflected an individualistic social value orientation after participating in the computer-based context manipulation, regardless of their measured social value orientation in the predisposition task prior to the context manipulation. Participants� decision-making did not end up being in alignment with the social value orientation condition to which they were assigned; the computer-based nature of the task itself served as sufficient context to manipulate participants� decision-making toward the individualistic.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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