Is There a Limit To Imagination? Exploring the Effectiveness of Prosocial Simulation Across Different Scenarios and Its Efficacy in Enhancing Cooperation

In the past decade, the utility of episodic simulation - our ability to generate spatiotemporally specific mental representations - in promoting prosocial intentions and behaviours has garnered significant attention. The aim of this thesis, at the onset, was to assess the efficacy of episodic simulation in facilitating cooperation amongst strangers, a possibility scarcely explored in prior research. However, the null findings suggesting that episodic simulation does not facilitate cooperative behaviours prompted a shift in focus to explore the reasons underlying these results. Across four experiments, we confirmed the prosocial simulation effect is indeed replicable in the New Zealand context and examined the limits on the transferability of the prosocial benefits of episodic simulation to different response scenarios. The results of these experiments suggest that the initial null findings observed are likely attributable to a lack of overlap between the envisaged scenarios and the scenarios that participants subsequently evaluated. Upon establishing the reasons underlying the initial null findings, we shifted our focus back to the original goal of the thesis: assessing whether episodic simulation can be implemented to facilitate cooperative behaviours. Across two experiments, we found evidence that a key mechanism of cooperation - interpersonal trust - can be facilitated by episodic simulation. The extended work presented in this thesis corroborates the previously reported facilitatory effects of episodic simulation on prosocial intentions and behaviours. Furthermore, by highlighting the limits of the transferability of this effect across different scenarios, as well as extending it to interpersonal trust, our findings provide novel insights into the practical implementation of episodic simulation as a costeffective tool to promote a broad range of human prosociality.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Peng, Ding-Cheng (Bruce)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cowie, Sarah

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/61027

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/61027