Maximizing individual or common profit - Regular or changeable preferences in economic games?

Authors:

• Anna Hełka,
• Tomasz Zaleśkiewicz

Abstract

According to game theory people should maximize their own gain. However, in many researches social behaviour can be observed instead of individual one (Fehr, 2004). It is also known that people differ in their preferences and some of them are more and other less pro-socially oriented (Hełka, 2007). The question remains are we able to modify this tendency through external, adequate training. We have tried to verify this tenet in our experiment. Results tend to show that external training may influence behaviour in economic games, but this impact is different for men and women.