The role of linguistically encoded emotional characteristics for cooperativeness in a one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma

Abstract

We investigate linguistically encoded emotional alignment in pairs of players in a TV game show that is set up as a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma. We measure which linguistically encoded emotional characteristics are relevant for choosing between cooperative and defective behavior in that game. We show that cooperativeness depends on interactions between emotional characteristics of both players. In contrast to research on emotional synchrony and cooperation, however, we find that players are more likely to cooperate if their emotions do not align. We interpret this as an instance of deceptive linguistic behavior.