One-shot Prisoner Research Articles

Religious motivations for cooperation: an experimental investigation using explicit primes

The role of religion in human cooperation remains a highly contested topic. Recent studies using economic game experiments to explore this issue have been largely inconclusive, yielding a range of conflicting results. In this study, we investigate the ability of religion to promote cooperation by using explicit theological primes. In the first study, conducted in a church, we find that subjects who report a stronger connection with a Christian passage about charitable giving are subsequently more likely to cooperate in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game. In the second study, conducted over the Internet, we find that Christian subjects are more likely to cooperate after reading a Christian passage than a neutral one. However, in the same study, we find that Hindu and secular passages have no significant effect on Christians, and that none of the passages (Christian, Hindu, or secular) have an effect on non-Christians. Our results show the potential power of explicitly religious exhortations that promote cooperation, and also their selectivity.

Social Motives and Expectations in One-Shot Asymmetric Prisoner's Dilemmas

We propose a formal-behavioral framework with 3 components: nonselfish motives, expectations about others' nonselfish motives, and a game-theoretic component. For nonselfish motives, 3 nonstandard utility models representing altruism, inequality aversion, and norms are considered. Expectations are modeled as certain versus uncertain expectations. The game-theoretic component predicts behavior of actors and actors' expectations about behaviors of others. This framework is applied to asymmetric one-shot prisoner's dilemmas; predictions are tested experimentally. Formal analyses show that asymmetry provides new predictions through which nonstandard utility-expectation models can be distinguished. Empirical tests show that the inequality aversion model does considerably worse than altruistic and normative variants. Statistical tests for own motives, expected motives, and the association between the two are provided, while accounting for decision noise.

Gender differences in social framing effects

In a one-shot Prisoners’ dilemma experiment, female participants are highly sensitive to the social frame. Male participants are not.

An experimental investigation of a third-person enforcement in a prisoner’s dilemma game

We experimentally study the effect of a third-person enforcement on a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game played by two persons, with whom the third person plays repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. We find that when the third person can observe these two persons’ play, the possibility of the third person’s future punishment causes them to cooperate in the one-shot game.

An alternative mechanism through which economic inequality facilitates collective action: Wealth disparities as a sign of cooperativeness

Past models treat economic inequality as an exogenous condition that can provide individuals a dominant incentive to produce collective goods unilaterally. Here we part with that tradition so as to treat economic inequality and collective action as endogenous, and to examine whether economic inequality can foster collective action even when all individuals can gain from free-riding. Using evolutionary game theory and computer simulations, we study whether cooperation can evolve when agents play multiple, one-shot prisoner’s dilemma (PD) games per generation and employ strategies that condition cooperative play on their game partners’ wealth holdings. In this game environment, we find that collective action succeeds via a strategy in which players choose to cooperate when joining a PD with an economic equal and defect when partnered with a player possessing wealth holdings unequal to their own. These results signal an alternative avenue through which economic inequality can influence the viability of collective action.

Facing a Dilemma: Cooperative Behavior and Beauty

Being good-looking seems to generate substantial benefits in many social interactions, making the "beauty premium" a not to be underrated economic factor. This paper investigates how physical attractiveness enables people to generate these benefits in the case of cooperation, using field data from a modified one-shot prisoner's dilemma played in a high-stakes television game show. While attractive contestants are not more or less cooperative than less attractive ones, facial attractiveness produces more cooperative behavior by counterparts, but only in mixed-gender interactions. Effects of attractiveness are therefore not exclusively due to "beauty-is-good" stereotyping, but rather operate through a preference-based mechanism.

Evolution of tag-mediated altruistic behavior in one-shot encounters on large-scale complex networks

An agent-based evolutionary model of tag-mediated altruism is studied on large-scale complex networks addressing multiplayer one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma-like games with four competing strategies. Contrary to standard theoretical predictions, but in line with recent empirical findings, we observed that altruistic acts in non-repeated interactions can emerge as a natural consequence of recognition of heritable phenotypic traits such as visual tags, which enable the discrimination between potentially beneficial and unproductive encounters. Moreover, we identified topological regimes in which cooperation always prevails at short times, but where unconditional cooperators are favored over conditional tag-based helpers, even though the latter initially have a slight reproductive advantage. After very long times, we found that all four strategies appeared about equally often, meaning that only one quarter of agents refused cooperation egoistically. However, our study suggests that intra-tag generosity can quickly evolve to dominate over other strategies in spatially structured environments that are otherwise detrimental to cooperative behavior.

An Experimental Investigation of a Third Person Enforcement in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

We experimentally study the effect of a third person enforcement on a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game played by two persons, with whom the third person plays repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. We find that when the third person can observe these two persons’ play, the possibility of the third person’s future punishment causes them to cooperate in the one-shot game.

Emotion Interference Solves Social Dilemma

Roles of emotion in decision-making have been attracting attention in neuroeconomics and behavioral game theory. We mathematically demonstrate that “emotion interference”, a recently-discovered psychological phenomenon [1] helps to solve social dilemma in a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game. Furthermore, the present theory also accounts for the violation of Savage’s sure-thing principle in the prisoner’s dilemma [2]. Furthermore, it is also explained that why people in the society with higher social mobility are more cooperative. Relations of the present work to recently evolving fields of neuroeconomics and quantum decision theory are discussed.

Program equilibrium—a program reasoning approach

The concept of program equilibrium, introduced by Howard (Theory and Decision 24(3):203–213, 1988) and further formalised by Tennenholtz (Game Econ Behav 49:363–373, 2004), represents one of the most ingenious and potentially far-reaching applications of ideas from computer science in game theory to date. The basic idea is that a player in a game selects a strategy by entering a program, whose behaviour may be conditioned on the programs submitted by other players. Thus, for example, in the prisoner’s dilemma, a player can enter a program that says “If his program is the same as mine, then I cooperate, otherwise I defect”. It can easily be shown that if such programs are permitted, then rational cooperation is possible even in the one-shot prisoner’s dilemma. In the original proposal of Tennenholtz, comparison between programs was limited to syntactic comparison of program texts. While this approach has some considerable advantages (not the least being computational and semantic simplicity), it also has some important limitations. In this paper, we investigate an approach to program equilibrium in which richer conditions are allowed, based on model checking—one of the most successful approaches to reasoning about programs. We introduce a decision-tree model of strategies, which may be conditioned on strategies of others. We then formulate and investigate a notion of “outcome” for our setting, and investigate the complexity of reasoning about outcomes. We focus on coherent outcomes: outcomes in which every decision by every player is justified by the conditions in his program. We identify a condition under which there exist a unique coherent outcome. We also compare our notion of (coherent) outcome with that of (supported) semantics known from logic programming. We illustrate our approach with many examples.

When a Precedent of Donation Favors Defection in the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Abstract In this paper, we examine the question of whether a collective activity can influence cooperation in a subsequent repeated one-shot prisoner’s dilemma (PD) game. We conduct two series of experiments. The first consists of control experiments in which 30 periods of a PD game are played, with a random rematching of the pairs in every period. In a second series of experiments, subjects first play a donation game (DG) and then the PD game. In the DG, they collectively discuss the amount of a donation to a given charity, before putting the question to an individual and anonymous vote. Cooperation levels in the PD games preceded by the DG are significantly lower than those observed in the control experiment.

A One-Shot Prisoners' Dilemma with Procedural Utility

This article introduces a model of rationality that combines procedural utility over actions with consequential utility over payoffs. It applies the model to the Prisoners' Dilemma and shows that empirically observed cooperative behaviors can be rationally explained by a procedural utility for cooperation. The model characterizes the situations in which cooperation emerges as a Nash equilibrium. When rational individuals are not solely concerned by the consequences of their behavior but also care for the process by which these consequences are obtained, there is no one single rational solution to a Prisoners' Dilemma. Rational behavior depends on the payoffs at stake and on the procedural utility of individuals. In this manner, this model of procedural utility reflects how ethical considerations, social norms or emotions can transform a game of consequences.

Evidence of Homo Economicus? Findings from Experiment on Evolutionary Prisoners' Dilemma Game

This paper aims to analyze subjects’ behavior in an experiment on evolutionary process of prisoners’ dilemma game. The experiment has been designed by using sixteen one-shot prisoners’ dilemma games with payoffs perturbation and random matching players under perfect information. The subjects of the experiment were students and staff in Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. In contrast to previous studies, for instance Selten and Stoecker’s (1986) Cooper’s, et.al (1991, 1996), the majority of the subjects in this experiment tend to choose Nash equilibrium strategy consistently from the first game. The result showed that the proportion of the Nash equilibrium outcome was consistently in the range of 85%-88%, whereas the tacit cooperation or Pareto optimum outcome was about 1%-2%. There were evidence that payoffs perturbation influences players’ decision. In contrast to the previous studies above, the results from this study revealed that the vast majority of the subjects tend to choose the dominant strategy as prescribed in Game Theory.

The psychopath’s dilemma: The effects of psychopathic personality traits in one-shot games

If psychopathy is the absence of the cooperative dispositions present in normally-developing individuals, then individuals with higher levels of psychopathic personality traits should exhibit lower levels of cooperation in experimental games. The present study investigated whether Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) scores were negatively correlated with cooperation in one-shot prisoner’s dilemmas and bargaining games. The results show that specific PPI subscales (especially Machiavellian Egocentricity) were negatively associated with cooperation, and have diverse effects on bargaining. These results suggest that neither cooperation nor psychopathy are ‘monomorphic’, and that future research should identify how different aspects of psychopathic personality influence distinct types of social interaction.

Comparing the neural basis of decision making in social dilemmas of people with different social value orientations, a fMRI study.

Using functional MRI, we investigate the neural correlates of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation to cooperate by comparing people who differ in the personality trait Social Value Orientation. Participants (n 28) played several one-shot prisoner’s dilemma games (offering weak cooperative incentives) and coordination games (offering strong cooperative incentives) with anonymous partners while they were under the scanner. Behavioral results indicate that proself individuals adjust their behavior toward more cooperation when extrinsic incentives were present, while prosocials’ decisions are not affected by game context. The neurological data is consistent with a priori developed hypotheses regarding different behavioral strategies, and suggest that extrinsically motivated proself strategies are driven by calculation and a situation-by-situation approach. Increased activation was found in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS), and precuneus. Intrinsically motivated prosocials’ strategies reflect norm compliance, routine moral judgment, and social awareness. Increased activation was found in lateral orbitofrontal cortex, anterior STS, and inferior parietal lobule.

A Non-Cooperative Pareto-Efficient Solution to the One-Shot Prisoner’s Dilemma

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a simple model that captures the essential contradiction between individual rationality and global rationality. Although the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma is usually viewed simple, in this paper we will categorize it into five different types. For the type-4 Prisoner's Dilemma game, we will propose a self-enforcing algorithmic model to help non-cooperative agents obtain Pareto-efficient payoffs. The algorithmic model is based on an algorithm using complex numbers and can work in macro applications.

A behavioral analysis of altruism.

Altruistic acts have been defined, in economic terms, as "…costly acts that confer economic benefits on other individuals" (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003). In multi-player, one-shot prisoner's dilemma games, a significant number of players behave altruistically; their behavior benefits each of the other players but is costly to them. We consider three potential explanations for such altruism. The first explanation, following a suggestion by the philosopher Derek Parfit, assumes that players devise a strategy to avoid being free-loaders-and that in the present case this strategy dictates cooperation. The second explanation says that cooperators reject the one-shot aspect of the game and behave so as to maximize reward over a series of choices extending beyond the present situation (even though reward is not maximized in the present case). This explanation assumes that people may learn to extend the boundaries of their selves socially (beyond their own skin) as well as temporally (beyond the present moment). We propose a learning mechanism for such behavior analogous to the biological, evolutionary mechanism of group selection. The third explanation assumes that people's altruism is based on a straightforward balancing of undiscounted costs to themselves against discounted benefits to others (social discounting). The three proposed explanations of altruism complement each other.

Evolution of Cultural Groups and Persistent Parochialism

Discriminators who have limited tolerance for helping dissimilar others are necessary for the evolution of costly cooperation in a one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma. Existing research reports that trust in societies decreases when agents copy markers and tolerance from more successful others. Global cooperation is possible only in highly homogenized societies. Emergent cooperative societies are not robust against mutant defectors with tolerably similar markers. Our simulation experiments compare one society where each agent has immutable binary tags at the same dimension (‘caste society’) to the other where such markers are distributed across different dimensions (‘modern society’). In both societies, the majority of population display strong parochialism. However, cooperation is significantly stable in modern societies although members are more tolerant than those in caste societies. Modern societies are characterized by loosely coupled small-sized groups with different cultural markers. In terms of efficiency, they achieve higher levels of cooperation than do societies where agents change markers rapidly before defectors attack cooperative clusters.

Inducing Cooperative Behavior among Proselfs versus Prosocials: The Moderating Role of Incentives and Trust

This study investigates how an individual’s social value orientation (SVO) interacts with explicit cooperative incentives on one hand, and intrinsic and extraneously induced trust on the other hand, to affect cooperative behavior. In three experiments, subjects (n = 322) played a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma (PD; with weak cooperative incentives) and an assurance game (AG; with strong cooperative incentives) in conditions with or without trust signals. The authors found, as expected, that cooperative behavior is strongly spurred by explicit incentives, but not by trust, among people with a proself value orientation. Conversely, trust is very important to enhance cooperative behavior of participants with a prosocial value orientation, whereas explicit incentives are less important compared to proselfs. The authors conclude that this study reveals two fundamentally different logics of cooperative behavior: one based on extrinsic incentives and the other on trust.

Understanding cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game

In the standard one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma game, participants often choose to cooperate, when the optimal strategy is to defect. This puzzling finding has attracted considerable interest both in terms of possible computational frameworks for modeling human judgment, but also regarding the more general debate of human altruism. In this research, we ask how much of human behavior in this task can be explained by a putative bias for cooperative behavior and whether this, in turn, is influenced by personality. We compared performance on the standard task with performance on a matched neutral one; we manipulated the optimal strategy (defect or cooperate); and we manipulated the amount of payoff for responding optimally. Results revealed little evidence for a bias for cooperative behavior, but significant associations with the personality factors of Behavioural Activation System (BAS) Reward Responsivity and Agreeableness were found. These findings are discussed in terms of the attempt to explain judgment in one-shot, Prisoner’s Dilemma tasks with statistical or probabilistic models.