Do you share your personally useless information if others may benefit from it?

Information is personally useless if its beholder cannot individually benefit from it further unless she shares it with those who can exploit that information to increase their mutual outcome. We study sharing such information anonymously in a non-strategic and non-competitive setting, where selfish...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 17; no. 10; p. e0276062
Main Authors: Yazdanpanah, Aryan, Vahabie, Abdol-Hossein, Nili Ahmadabadi, Majid
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 17.10.2022
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Biology and Life Sciences
Business competition
Computer and Information Sciences
Cooperation
File sharing
Influence
Information communication
Information sharing
Methods
Personality traits
Physical Sciences
Sensitivity analysis
Social networks
Social Sciences
Technology application
Iran
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Information is personally useless if its beholder cannot individually benefit from it further unless she shares it with those who can exploit that information to increase their mutual outcome. We study sharing such information anonymously in a non-strategic and non-competitive setting, where selfish and cooperative motives align. Although sharing information was cost-free and resulted in expected mutual payoff, almost all subjects showed some levels of hesitancy toward sharing information, and it was more severe in the introverts. According to our mechanistic model, this irrationality could arise because of the excessive subjective value of personally useless information and low other-regarding motives, that necessitated over-attainable personal benefit to drive sharing. Interestingly, other-regarding element correlated with the subjects’ belief about how others are cooperative in general. In addition, sensitivity to the value of information correlated with their extraversion level. The results open a new window towards understanding inefficient motives that deprive people of collective benefit.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0276062