Cultural values in intergroup and single-group social dilemmas

Do cultural values influence the manner in which people cooperate with one another? This study assessed cultural characteristics of individuals and th en related these characteristics to cooperative behavior in social dilemmas . Participants were assessed for their degree of vertical and horizontal in dividualism and collectivism, cultural values identified by Triandis (1995) , They made choices in either a single-group or an intergroup social dilemm a. The single-group dilemma entailed a three-person dilemma; the intergroup dilemma was identical but added subgroup competition, i,e., an opposing th ree-person group. The results indicated an interaction between cultural cha racteristics and type of dilemma for cooperation. The single-group versus i ntergroup effect reported by Bornstein and Ben-Yossef (1994) was replicated , but only for vertical individualists. The vertical individualists were le ast cooperative in the single-group dilemma but were more cooperative in th e intergroup dilemma-where cooperation with the group maximized personal ou tcomes. The vertical collectivists were most cooperative in the single-grou p dilemma but were less cooperative in the intergroup dilemma-where group d efection resulted in maximum group outcomes. The horizontal individualists and collectivists exhibited an intermediate level of cooperation, with no d ifferences in cooperation between the single-group and intergroup dilemmas. Taken together, the results suggest that the relationship between cultural values and cooperation, in particular with reference to vertical and horiz ontal components of individualism and collectivism, is more complex than ha s been suggested in past research. (C) 1999 Academic Press.