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Physical Attractiveness, Altruism and Cooperation in an Ultimatum Game

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Abstract

Explaining cooperative tendencies through an evolutionary lens has been problematic for theorists. Traditional explanations derive from theories of reciprocity, biological markets, and more recently via partner choice and sexual selection. The sexual selection hypothesis has been tested within game-theoretic frameworks gaining empirical support in explaining the evolution of altruism. Males have been found to be more altruistic towards attractive females. However, previous research has predominantly adopted a design where participants are not engaging with ‘real people’. Instead, participants make decisions when viewing images or hypothetical scenarios without visual cues. The present study aimed to investigate the sexual selection hypothesis using a face-to-face game theoretic framework. One hundred and thirty-eight participants played a 2-round ultimatum game with chocolate coins as the monetary incentive. We find, that physical attractiveness had no influence on generosity and cooperation when participants play a face-to-face ultimatum game. Instead, proposers were fair when allocating stakes, offering an average of half the endowment to responders. This study refutes the link between the sexual selection hypothesis and generosity when playing economic games with real people. Fairness appeared to drive generosity and cooperation.

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Notes

  1. Consistent with Barclay (2013) we use the terms altruism and generosity interchangeably. Both altruism and generosity confer benefits to a receiver whilst being costly to the altruist. Fairness is defined as equal sharing between giver and receiver (Baumard et al. 2013; Fehr and Schmidt 1999).

  2. This paper concerns itself with inter-sexual competition, as opposed to intra-sexual competition. For further information on intra-sexual competition, see Workman and Reader (2014).

  3. This study was approved by the University of Wolverhampton behavioural ethics committee. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

  4. Due to high collinearity between the variables ‘perceived attractiveness and dating intention’, the dating intention item was taken out of the regression model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing, University of Wolverhampton, Millennium City Building, City Campus, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SB, UK

    Manpal Singh Bhogal, Niall Galbraith & Ken Manktelow

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  1. Manpal Singh Bhogal
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  2. Niall Galbraith
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Correspondence to Manpal Singh Bhogal.

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There are no conflicts of interest. This research involved collecting data from human participants. Informed consent was taken from all participants who took part in this study. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Bhogal, M.S., Galbraith, N. & Manktelow, K. Physical Attractiveness, Altruism and Cooperation in an Ultimatum Game. Curr Psychol 36, 549–555 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-016-9443-1

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