The Evolution of Cooperation in One-Shot Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

Abstract

Prisoner’s Dilemma provides a formal representation of a ubiquitous type of situations that arises when individual interests undermine the collective welfare of the group. Essentially, the pessimistic result of this game is due to the fact that defecting is the dominating strategy for every player, and the “cooperative” strategy profile (R,R) for the one-shot game Pareto-dominates the “no-cooperative” strategy equilibrium (P,P), where the payoffs obey T>R>P>S. This paper suggests and formalizes a theoretical alternative to escape from the Prisoner Dilemma’s non-cooperation trap. Specifically, it argues that if a critical mass of highly interested individuals with heterogeneous and interdependent preferences for a given public good and certain level of geographical, and social proximity among them are reached, full cooperation is achieved and collective action takes place which in turns leads to the acquisition of a specific public good.