IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v100y2016icp113-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social surplus determines cooperation rates in the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • Charness, Gary
  • Rigotti, Luca
  • Rustichini, Aldo

Abstract

We provide evidence on how cooperation rates vary across payoff parameters in the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD), using four one-shot games that differ only in the payoffs from mutual cooperation. In our experiment, participants play only the PD game, and play the game once and only once, so there are no potential confounds or methodological issues. Our results show that higher monetary payoffs from cooperation are associated with substantially higher cooperation rates, which increase monotonically from 23% to 60%. Participants' beliefs about cooperation rates track closely actual cooperation rates: higher cooperation is expected from others when mutual cooperation payoffs are higher. This is true also for participants who, in a follow-up experiment, only make guesses about the choices of others.

Suggested Citation

  • Charness, Gary & Rigotti, Luca & Rustichini, Aldo, 2016. "Social surplus determines cooperation rates in the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 113-124.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:100:y:2016:i:c:p:113-124
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2016.08.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825616300902
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2016.08.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kreps, David M. & Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Rational cooperation in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 245-252, August.
    2. Andreoni,J. & Varian,H., 1999. "Pre-play contracting in the prisoners' dilemma," Working papers 18, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    3. Unknown, 1967. "Index," 1967 Conference, August 21-30, 1967, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 209796, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Georg Weizsäcker, 2008. "Stated Beliefs and Play in Normal-Form Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 729-762.
    5. Charness, Gary & Frechette, Guillaume R. & Qin, Cheng-Zhong, 2007. "Endogenous transfers in the Prisoner's Dilemma game: An experimental test of cooperation and coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 287-306, August.
    6. repec:tiu:tiucen:200457 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Kuhn, Michael A., 2012. "Experimental methods: Between-subject and within-subject design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 1-8.
    8. Bellemare, Charles & Kroger, Sabine, 2007. "On representative social capital," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 183-202, January.
    9. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher & Bernhard von Rosenbladt & J�rgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, "undated". "A Nation-Wide Laboratory: Examining trust and trustworthiness by integrating behavioral experiments into representative surveys," IEW - Working Papers 141, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    10. Michael Naef & Jürgen Schupp, 2009. "Measuring Trust: Experiments and Surveys in Contrast and Combination," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 167, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    11. David Gill & Victoria Prowse, 2016. "Cognitive Ability, Character Skills, and Learning to Play Equilibrium: A Level-k Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(6), pages 1619-1676.
    12. Proto, Eugenio & Rustichini, Aldo & Sofianos, Andis, 2014. "Higher Intelligence Groups Have Higher Cooperation Rates in the Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma," IZA Discussion Papers 8499, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Costa-Gomes, Miguel A. & Huck, Steffen & Weizsäcker, Georg, 2014. "Beliefs and actions in the trust game: Creating instrumental variables to estimate the causal effect," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 298-309.
    14. Drew Fudenberg & David G. Rand & Anna Dreber, 2012. "Slow to Anger and Fast to Forgive: Cooperation in an Uncertain World," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 720-749, April.
    15. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    16. Jones, Garett, 2008. "Are smarter groups more cooperative? Evidence from prisoner's dilemma experiments, 1959-2003," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 489-497, December.
    17. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    18. Paola Sapienza & Anna Toldra‐Simats & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Understanding Trust," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1313-1332, December.
    19. repec:tiu:tiucen:200347 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Jordi Brandts & Gary Charness, 2011. "The strategy versus the direct-response method: a first survey of experimental comparisons," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(3), pages 375-398, September.
    21. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    22. repec:dgr:kubcen:200347 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    24. Bellemare, Charles & Kroger, Sabine, 2007. "On representative social capital," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 183-202, January.
    25. Ahn, T K & Ostrom, Elinor & Shupp, Robert & Walker, James, 2001. "Cooperation in PD Games: Fear, Greed, and History of Play," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 106(1-2), pages 137-155, January.
    26. Anatol Rapoport, 1967. "A note on the "index of cooperation" for Prisoner's Dilemma," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 11(1), pages 100-103, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sofianos, Andis, 2022. "Self-reported & revealed trust: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Zhang, Zhe & Zhang, Xu & Putterman, Louis, 2019. "Trust and cooperation at a confluence of worlds: An experiment in Xinjiang, China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 128-144.
    3. Costa-Gomes, Miguel A. & Huck, Steffen & Weizsäcker, Georg, 2014. "Beliefs and actions in the trust game: Creating instrumental variables to estimate the causal effect," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 88, pages 298-309.
    4. Kim, Jeongbin & Putterman, Louis & Zhang, Xinyi, 2022. "Trust, Beliefs and Cooperation: Excavating a Foundation of Strong Economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    5. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    6. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    7. Rattaphon Wuthisatian & Mark Pingle & Mark Nichols, 2017. "To support trust and trustworthiness: punish, communicate, both, neither?," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 1(1), pages 61-68, February.
    8. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    9. Martin G. Kocher, 2015. "How Trust in Social Dilemmas Evolves with Age," CESifo Working Paper Series 5447, CESifo.
    10. Charness, Gary & Naef, Michael & Sontuoso, Alessandro, 2019. "Opportunistic conformism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 100-134.
    11. Banerjee, Ritwik, 2018. "On the interpretation of World Values Survey trust question - Global expectations vs. local beliefs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 491-510.
    12. Martijn J. van den Assem & Dennie van Dolder & Richard H. Thaler, 2012. "Split or Steal? Cooperative Behavior When the Stakes Are Large," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 2-20, January.
    13. Blanco, Mariana & Engelmann, Dirk & Koch, Alexander K. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2014. "Preferences and beliefs in a sequential social dilemma: a within-subjects analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 122-135.
    14. Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2009. "Reputation and Credit Market Formation: How Relational Incentives and Legal Contract Enforcement Interact," IZA Discussion Papers 4351, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Avtonomov, Y. & Elizarova, E., 2016. "Trust, Expectations and Optimism Bias: an Experimental Study," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 27-53.
    16. Daniel Woods & Maroš Servátka, 2019. "Nice to you, nicer to me: Does self-serving generosity diminish the reciprocal response?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 506-529, June.
    17. repec:cup:judgdm:v:10:y:2015:i:5:p:442-455 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Zachary Grossman, 2014. "Strategic Ignorance and the Robustness of Social Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2659-2665, November.
    19. Ashraf, Nava & Bohnet, Iris & Piankov, Nikita, 2003. "Is Trust a Bad Investment?," Working Paper Series rwp03-047, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    20. Maroš Servátka & Steven Tucker & Radovan Vadovič, 2011. "Building Trust—One Gift at a Time," Games, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-22, September.
    21. Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde & Hromek, Kristijan & Kleinknecht, Janina & Ludwig, Sandra, 2023. "Reciprocal reactions to (in)transparent task assignments: An experimental investigation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Prisoner's Dilemma; Cooperation rates; Beliefs; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:100:y:2016:i:c:p:113-124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.