Cooperation and Personality

Cooperating and trusting behavior may be explained with preferences over social outcomes (people care about others, are unselfish and helpful), or attitudes to work and social responsibilities (plans have to be carried out, norms have to be followed). We test the relative importance of these two factors considering personality traits of subjects in experiments with costly mental effort provision. We claim that if the first hypothesis is true, traits reporting stated empathy for others (Agreeableness), should matter; if the second, higher score in traits expressing attitude to work and intrinsic motivation (Conscientiousness) should be a good predictor. We find experimental stronger support for the second hypothesis when subjects provide real mental effort in two treatments with identical task, differing by whether others’ payment is affected. JEL classification: C90, D03, D82