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Risk and Temptation: A Meta‐study on Prisoner's Dilemma Games

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  • Friederike Mengel

Abstract

This article reports the results of a meta‐study of 96 prisoner's dilemma studies comprising more than 3,500 participants. I disentangle the role of ‘risk’ (to co‐operate unilaterally) and ‘temptation’ (to defect against a co‐operator) and find that: (i) an index of risk best explains the variation in co‐operation rates across one‐shot games, while (ii) an index of temptation best explains the variation in finitely repeated games. Risk and temptation indices also affect gender comparisons. Women are more co‐operative than the average man if risk is low and less co‐operative if risk is high. There are no gender differences on average.

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  • Friederike Mengel, 2018. "Risk and Temptation: A Meta‐study on Prisoner's Dilemma Games," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(616), pages 3182-3209, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:econjl:v:128:y:2018:i:616:p:3182-3209
    DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12548
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    Cited by:

    1. Ghidoni, Riccardo & Cleave, Blair L. & Suetens, Sigrid, 2019. "Perfect and imperfect strangers in social dilemmas," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 148-159.
    2. Christoph Engel & Max R. P. Grossmann & Axel Ockenfels, 2023. "Integrating machine behavior into human subject experiments: A user-friendly toolkit and illustrations," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2024_01, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. Hoffmann, Lisa, 2022. "Cooperation in the name of God? Experimental evidence from Ghana and Tanzania," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Marco LiCalzi & Roland Mühlenbernd, 2022. "Feature-weighted categorized play across symmetric games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 1052-1078, June.
    5. Paul M. Gorny & Petra Nieken & Karoline Ströhlein, 2023. "He, She, They? The Impact of Gendered Language on Economic Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 10458, CESifo.
    6. Tóbiás, Áron, 2023. "Rational Altruism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 50-80.
    7. Argenton, Cédric & Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Müller, Wieland, 2024. "Cournot meets Bayes-Nash: A discontinuity in behavior in finitely repeated duopoly games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 1-12.
    8. Simon Gaechter & Kyeongtae Lee & Martin Sefton & Till O. Weber, 2021. "Risk, Temptation, and Efficiency in the One-Shot Prisoner's Dilemma," CESifo Working Paper Series 9449, CESifo.
    9. Justus Haucap & Christina Heldman, 2023. "On the sociology of cartels," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 289-323, October.
    10. Yi Han & Yiming Liu & George Loewenstein, 2023. "Confusing Context with Character: Correspondence Bias in Economic Interactions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 1070-1091, February.
    11. Mengel, Friederike & Orlandi, Ludovica & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2022. "Match length realization and cooperation in indefinitely repeated games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    12. Anujit Chakraborty, 2022. "Motives Behind Cooperation in Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma," Working Papers 353, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    13. Arigapudi, Srinivas & Heller, Yuval & Milchtaich, Igal, 2020. "Instability of Defection in the Prisoner’s Dilemma: Best Experienced Payoff Dynamics Analysis," MPRA Paper 99594, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Normann, Hans-Theo & Sternberg, Martin, 2022. "Human-algorithm interaction: Algorithmic pricing in hybrid laboratory markets," DICE Discussion Papers 392, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    15. Arigapudi, Srinivas & Heller, Yuval & Milchtaich, Igal, 2021. "Instability of defection in the prisoner's dilemma under best experienced payoff dynamics," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    16. Normann, Hans-Theo & Sternberg, Martin, 2023. "Human-algorithm interaction: Algorithmic pricing in hybrid laboratory markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    17. Olga Lainidi & Eirini Karakasidou & Anthony Montgomery, 2022. "Dark Triad, Impulsiveness and Honesty-Humility in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game: The Moderating Role of Gender," Merits, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-13, November.
    18. Jensen, Thomas & Markussen, Thomas, 2021. "Group size, signaling and the effect of democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 258-273.
    19. Heller, Yuval & Tubul, Itay, 2023. "Strategies in the repeated prisoner’s dilemma: A cluster analysis," MPRA Paper 117444, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Chakraborty, Anujit, 2023. "Motives behind cooperation in finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 105-132.
    21. Srinivas Arigapudi & Yuval Heller & Igal Milchtaich, 2020. "Instability of Defection in the Prisoner's Dilemma Under Best Experienced Payoff Dynamics," Papers 2005.05779, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2021.

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