Abstract

The relationship between intuition and cooperation has been widely studied with mixed results. We argue that these may be due to two particular issues. First, the fact that some manipulations considered to promote intuition, consisting in self-control depletion, could lead to an impulsive, rather than intuitive, cognitive style. Second, a moderation of gender in the effect of intuition. We hypothesize that impulsivity might decrease cooperation, whereas intuition might increase cooperation in females and decrease it in males. To test these hypotheses, we conduct a Public Good Game experiment under three conditions: Cognitive Load (CL) that should induce intuitive decisions, Ego Depletion (ED) that should induce impulsive decisions and a control treatment. In line with our hypothesis, we find that Ego Depletion decreases cooperation. The effect of CL is moderated by gender; it increases cooperation in females whereas it decreases it in males.

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