Individual and situational factors influence cooperative choices in the decision-making process

This study aims to investigate situational (emotions) and individual factors (peace attitude and personality) on decision making, by using the prisoner’s dilemma paradigm. The study involved 104 participants. The positive, neutral and negative emotional states were induced by watching a video. The prisoner’s dilemma tasks were administered immediately after the video. Participants were divided into two groups, one with high and one with low levels of peace attitude, and an analysis of repeated measures of variance was subsequently applied. Results show how situational factors, such as exposure to positive rather than negative emotions, increase cooperative rather than competitive choice. For the individual factor of the peace attitude results showed that peaceful people prefer cooperation. This study suggests that both situational factors (emotions) and individual factors (attitude to peace) influence cooperative decision-making choices. Future research should further evaluate the role of situational and individual factors together and their interactions. This work seems to suggest that to achieve a more peaceful society interventions should be made involving both situational and individual factors. With reference to individual factors, learnt behaviors including the peace attitude has to become so automatized that it can overcame any negative emotions induced by the setting. Understanding the developmental pathways that can influence individual factors to consistently choose peace is important so as to promote a stable culture of peace across several levels of observation.