The "intuitive" (fast) interaction heuristic is predisposed towards selflessness, while the "calculated" (slow) decision making process favors greedier behavior: review of game studies. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22996558 Sidenote: Strange to have a Nature paper conflate a faster-payoff / ‘egoistic’ approach with being ‘rational’, and to contrast intuition with calculation, of all things. As if not being consciously aware of the calculation implicit in fast "intuitive" decision algorithms implied a lack of cognitive processing.
See also http://lesswrong.com/lw/dtg/notes_on_the_psychology_of_power/ where my comment included fulltext.
I wonder if inducing a feeling of power/high status in people would change the cooperative nature of the immediate response. It seems like in a tribe, you cooperate unless you’re sure you can get away with defecting.
I suspect you meant "selflessness" instead of "selfishness."
If it’s a game close to a true prisoner’s dilemma between two players, should we expect cooperation to rise again when we let people think even longer due to TDT considerations?