Social networking agency and prosociality are inextricably linked in economic games.

Abstract

The awareness of individuals regarding their social network surroundings and their capacity to use social connections to their advantage are well-established human characteristics. Economic games, incorporated with network science, are frequently used to examine social behaviour. Traditionally, such game models and experiments artificially limit players' abilities to take varied actions towards distinct social neighbours, thereby constraining their social networking agency. Here we designed an experimental paradigm that alters this agency and applied it to the prisoner's dilemma (N = 735), trust game (N = 735) and ultimatum game (N = 735) to investigate cooperation, trust and fairness. Granting participants greater network agency led to more prosocial behaviour across all three economic games, resulting in higher wealth and lower inequality compared with control groups. These findings suggest that incorporating social networking agency into experimental designs better captures the prosocial potential of human behaviour.