15:00 - 16:30
Tue—Casino_1.811—Poster2—55
Tue-Poster2
Room:
Room: Casino_1.811
Torn Between Self and Others: Investigating the Relationship Between Decision Conflict and Ambivalence in Prosocial Behavior With Mouse-Tracking
Tue—Casino_1.811—Poster2—5503
Presented by: Celine Frank
Celine Frank 1, 2*Angela Dorrough 1, 3Iris Schneider 2
1 University of Cologne, 2 TU Dresden, 3 University of Hagen
People often face decision conflict when choosing between prosocial and self-serving behaviors, torn between their prosocial motive to help others and their selfish motive to avoid personal costs. Such decisions put people in a tough spot, as neither choice can satisfy both motives. We hypothesize that in such prosocial decision-making, the degree to which people feel conflicted between behaviors is positively associated with ambivalence about the selected behavior, as consequently, fulfilling one motive may lead to positive feelings, while neglecting the other may result in negative feelings at the same time. To test this, we conducted an incentivized mouse-tracking study where participants played ten rounds of a binary dictator game, choosing between two transfer amounts. One amount always allowed participants to keep more money for themselves, while the other gave more to the recipient. After each choice, participants rated their positive and negative feelings and reported their levels of decision conflict and ambivalence. The results of this preregistered study (N = 150) will be presented.
Keywords: decision conflict; ambivalence; prosocial behavior; mouse-tracking