Investigating chronic pain as an in-group using the prisoner’s dilemma

Author

Tracy W. Brown, Tarleton State UniversityFollow
Cristian M. Botello, Tarleton State UniversityFollow
Amber L. Harris Bozer, Tarleton State UniversityFollow

Periodical Title

Modern Psychological Studies

Volume

23

Number

2

Department

Dept. of Psychology

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Date

2018

Abstract

Kinship is a strong predictor of altruism. However, chronic pain is a homeostatic threat to survival that creates a social in-group which we predicted would result in increased altruism over and above kinship, because it is driven by shared empathy. Participants included 139 individuals that were divided into a chronic pain or control group. Participants completed six Prisoner’s Dilemma scenarios with a sibling or chronic pain accomplice. Pain altruism and sibling altruism scores were calculated based on decisions to cooperate with or defect on an accomplice. A mixed ANOVA revealed that there were no significant differences between groups. The marginal difference between the groups suggests that chronic pain may create an in-group altruism that is just as strong as kinship.

Subject

Psychology

Keyword

Prisoner’s Dilemma; social in-groups; game theory; kinship; chronic pain; empathy

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

article

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Recommended Citation

Brown, Tracy W.; Botello, Cristian M.; and Harris Bozer, Amber L. (2018) "Investigating chronic pain as an in-group using the prisoner’s dilemma," Modern Psychological Studies: Vol. 23: No. 2, Article 9.
Available at: https://scholar.utc.edu/mps/vol23/iss2/9