Naive learning and cooperation in network experiments

Abstract

In this paper we study learning and cooperation in repeated prisoners' dilemmas experiments. We compare interaction neighbourhoods of different size and structure, we observe choices under different information conditions, and we estimate parameters of a learning model. We find that naive imitation, although a driving force in many models of spatial evolution, may be negligible in the experiment. Naive imitation predicts more cooperation in spatial structures than in spaceless ones—regardless whether interaction neighbourhoods have the same or different sizes in both structures. We find that with some interaction neighbourhoods even the opposite may hold.