Although a considerable amount of research has demonstrated a robust relationship between social value orientation and cooperation, these studies may be limited by focusing solely on the individual. Building on the growing literature documenting the effect of group formation on cooperation and personality similarity on negotiation, the present study explored whether similarity in social value orientation (both being pro-social or pro-self) leads to more cooperation in social dilemmas among dyad members. Drawing from expectancy theory and the concept of cognitive resources, we further predicted that the relationship between similarity in social value orientation and cooperation uniquely depends on whether the individual is cognitively busy. To test our hypothesis, we grouped our participants according to their social value orientation into three different dyads (similar-pro-self, similar-pro-social, and pro-self-pro-social) to complete a repeated prisoner’s dilemma task, and controlled their cognitive resources using a simultaneous digit memory task. The results suggested that (1) heterogeneous dyads’ (pro-self-pro-social) cooperation possibility experience a steeper decay as the number of rounds increases compared with the two homogeneous dyads (similar-pro-self, similar-pro-social). In addition, (2) similarity in social value orientation, interacting with participants’ cognitive resources, significantly influenced individual-level cooperation. Specifically, both pro-selfs and pro-socials, paired with unlike-minded counterparts, were more cooperative when they had abundant cognitive resources. However, cognitive resources had no significant influence on dyads with similar social value orientation. Overall, these findings demonstrate the importance of considering personality configuration when attempting to understand cooperation in social dilemmas among dyads.

尽管大量研究表明社会价值取向与合作之间存在牢固的关系，但这些研究可能因仅关注个人而受到限制。越来越多的文献记录了群体形成对合作的影响以及人格相似性对谈判的影响，本研究探讨了社会价值取向的相似性（亲社会或亲自我）是否会导致二人成员在社会困境中更多的合作。借鉴期望理论和认知资源的概念，我们进一步预测，社会价值取向的相似性与合作之间的关系唯一取决于个体是否认知忙碌。为了检验我们的假设，我们根据参与者的社会价值取向将他们分为三个不同的二元组（相似亲自我、相似亲社会和亲自我亲社会），以完成重复的囚徒困境任务，并且使用同时进行的数字记忆任务来控制他们的认知资源。结果表明，（1）与两个同质二元组（相似亲自我、相似亲社会）相比，随着轮数的增加，异质二元组（亲自我亲社会）的合作可能性经历了更急剧的衰减。 。此外，（2）社会价值取向的相似性，与参与者认知资源的相互作用，显着影响个体层面的合作。具体来说，无论是亲自我者还是亲社会者，与志同道合的同伴配对时，当他们拥有丰富的认知资源时，他们都会更加合作。然而，认知资源对具有相似社会价值取向的二人组没有显着影响。 总的来说，这些发现证明了在试图理解二人社会困境中的合作时考虑人格配置的重要性。