Prosocial behaviour is voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another person. Some research suggests that individuals with higher perspective-taking skills are more likely to behave cooperatively in social groups. A psychologist wanted to investigate this relationship using a sample of 32 undergraduate history students from a local university.

In the first part of the study, the psychologist administered a standardized psychometric scale to measure perspective-taking. The maximum possible score was 50. She found that the lowest perspective-taking score in her sample was 15, and the highest was 48.

In the second part of the study, each participant took part in an online cooperative decision-making simulation consisting of 40 trials. In each trial, the participant had to choose whether to share resources with a virtual partner (cooperative choice) or keep them. The computer recorded the total number of cooperative choices made by each participant, which ranged from 8 to 38.