How Social and Nonsocial Context Affects Stay/Leave Decision-Making: The Influence of Actual and Expected Rewards.

ABSTRACT: This study investigated whether deciding to either stay with or leave a social relationship partner, based on a sequence of collaborative social interactions, is impacted by (1) observed and (2) anticipated gains and losses associated with the collaboration; and, importantly, (3) whether these effects differ between social and nonsocial contexts. In the social context, participants played an iterated collaborative economic game in which they were dependent on the successes and failures of a game partner in order to increase their monetary payoff, and in which they were free to stop collaborating with this partner whenever they chose. In Study 1, we manipulated the actual success rate of partners, and demonstrated that participants decided to stay longer with 'better' partners. In Study 2,

SUBMITTER: Heijne A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4529303 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature