Subliminal Affective Priming Effect on Decision Making in Prisoner's Dilemma

摘要

Is subliminal priming able to affect people's choices and decision-making? The prisoners' dilemma is a canonical example of a game analyzed that shows why two individuals might not cooperate each other, even if it appears that it is in their best interest to do so. In the regular version of the prisoner's dilemma game, collaboration is dominated by betrayal, and as a result, the only possible outcome of the game is for both prisoners to betray the other. Regardless of what the other prisoner chooses one will always gain a greater payoff by betraying the other. Because betrayal is always more beneficial than cooperation, all objective prisoners would seemingly betray the other. This study examined whether subliminal emotional faces influence human's decision-making in the repeated prisoners' dilemma. In this study, subliminal emotional face was the independent variable. According to different emotional valence (happy, neutral or angry) and different present way of emotional faces (a transparent figure, or a backward masking face), the independent variable has 7 levels. So, 84 undergraduates were randomly divided into seven groups, participants in each group were subliminally primed with one kind of unseen face, after which they completed pre-designed negotiations task. The results showed that whatever the way to show subliminal emotional faces: by a transparent figure, or backward masking, both affected human's decision-making. Under the influence of different ways to present subliminal faces, participants choose their own behavior more cooperative or more uncooperative. These findings contribute to subliminal perception research on decision-making and the implications for this study are discussed.