Can't or Won't? Intentions Mitigate Reactions to Violations of Reciprocal Altruism Agreements

Previous research on emotional reactions to decisions to cooperate or default in reciprocal altruism (RA) situations has revealed that participants report strong emotional responses to various hypothetical RA scenarios. When given a vignette in which participants and a hypothetical friend have chosen to default on or uphold an agreement to help each other, participants report significant and distinctive changes in their estimated feelings toward the friend depending on which choice each party makes. In a prior study the reasons for defaulting were left ambiguous. so 2 new studies repeated this methodology but with the intentions of the defaulting made explicit. Participants were asked to rate their feelings toward their hypothetical friend before the agreement was made, after the agreement was made, and after the outcome of the RA situation was known. In the first study, with 202 undergraduate participants, defaulting on an agreement was unintentional on the part of both parties, which led to a predicted decrease in emotional change ratings compared to in the ambiguous defaulting study. In the second study, with 261 undergraduates, defaulting is explicitly intentional and led to a predicted increase in emotional change ratings compared to the ambiguous defaulting study. Statistical clustering of positive and negative emotions are consistent with emotional reactions as internal regulatory signals that are relevant for solving adaptive problems.