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Determinants of Successful Cooperation in a Face-to-Face Social Dilemma

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  • Grätz, Silvia
  • Darai, Donja

Abstract

What makes you a successful cooperator? Using data from the British television game show ``Golden Balls'' we analyze a prisoner's dilemma game and its pre-play. We find that players strategically select their partner for the PD, e.g., they bear in mind whether contestants lied. Players' expectations about the stake size strongly influence the outcome of the PD: The lower the stakes, the more likely players successfully cooperate. Most interestingly, unilateral cooperation is encouraged by mutually promising not to defect and shaking hands on it, but a mere handshake serves as manipulating device and increases successful defection.

Suggested Citation

  • Grätz, Silvia & Darai, Donja, 2011. "Determinants of Successful Cooperation in a Face-to-Face Social Dilemma," VfS Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis 48702, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc11:48702
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    1. Jasper Carrott & conditional co-operation
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2010-09-12 17:11:02

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    Cited by:

    1. Jingnan (Cecilia) Chen & Daniel Houser, 2013. "Promises and Lies: An Experiment on Detecting Deception," Working Papers 1038, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, revised Feb 2013.
    2. Simin He & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2017. "The Sources of the Communication Gap," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 2832-2846, September.
    3. Donja Darai & Silvia Grätz, 2012. "Attraction and cooperative behavior," ECON - Working Papers 082, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jun 2013.
    4. Sanjit Dhami & ali al-Nowaihi, 2012. "Evidential equilibria in static games," Discussion Papers in Economics 12/15, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    5. Jingnan Chen & Daniel Houser, 2017. "Promises and lies: can observers detect deception in written messages," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(2), pages 396-419, June.
    6. Kleinknecht, Janina, 2019. "A man of his word? An experiment on gender differences in promise keeping," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 251-268.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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