Media Naturalness and the Ability to Predict Generosity in a Give-Some - Get-Some Interaction

Evolutionary psychologists believe the human mind evolved to solve adaptive problems present in our ancestral environment. Our hominid ancestors survived in face-to-face groups by assessing the cooperative intentions of other group members. Media naturalness theory postulates face-to-face is the most ‘natural’ communication medium. This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment examining the ability of student subjects to predict the generosity of a counter-party under two media conditions: Face-to-Face (FtF), the more natural condition; and Video-to-Video (VtV), the less natural, technology-mediated condition. After a five-minute interaction, subjects took part in a givesome – get-some exchange and then predicted the generosity of their counterparty. Consistent with media naturalness theory, FtF subjects predicted generosity at a frequency greater than chance. Surprisingly, generosity predictions for the VtV condition were not significantly different from chance. Generosity prediction relates to important organizational behaviors such as cooperativeness, trust, and teamwork. Implications and future research opportunities are discussed.