The Effect Of Imaginary Contact On Cooperative Behavior In The Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

In recent years,the situation of epidemic prevention and control has been severe.People have reduced direct face-to-face contact,and contactless communication has become almost the norm.People are forced to maintain social distancing,and cooperation between people faces challenges.People’s decision to cooperate or not is largely influenced by social cues.Imaginary contact provides new contact clues for people’s social interaction,thus promoting the willingness of both sides to communicate.Therefore,this study introduced the indirect contact strategy--imaginary contact into the influencing factors of cooperative behavior,and further explored its mechanism.Two behavioral experiments were completed for this study.Experiment one was a one-factor between-subjects design with imaginal contact conditions(positive/negative/control group)as the independent variable,using a prisoner’s dilemma game paradigm to measure cooperative behavior and to explore the effect of imaginal contact on cooperative behavior and the mediating role of social distance.Experiment 2 was a two-factor between-subjects design of 3(imaginal contact:positive/negative/control)*2(social value orientation: pro-social/pro-ego)to further explore whether there is a moderating effect of different social value orientations between imaginal contact and cooperative behavior.The findings showed that(1)imaginal contact influenced cooperative behavior.Compared with the control group,positive imaginal contact increased the cooperation rate of individuals in the prisoner’s dilemma game,while negative imaginal contact decreased the cooperation rate of individuals in the prisoner’s dilemma game;(2)social distance played a part in mediating the effect of imaginal contact on cooperation behavior,positive imaginal contact could bring individuals closer to each other socially and thus promote cooperation behavior;(3)social value orientation moderated the effect of imaginal contact on cooperation behavior.(3)social value orientation moderates the influence of imaginative contact on cooperative behavior,and positive imaginative contact has a stronger effect on the cooperative behavior of individuals with a pro-ego value orientation.The above results suggest that imaginal contact exerts a significant influence on cooperative behavior and validate the mechanism of action of this process.This study enriches the research on cooperative behavior in social dilemmas and helps us to understand how imaginal contact affects individuals’ cooperative behavior.The findings of this study suggest that positive imaginal contact strategies can be used in interpersonal interactions to close the social distance with others,thereby enhancing interpersonal interactions and promoting cooperative behavior.