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Response‐dependent parameter changes in the prisoner's dilemma game
Author(s) -
Guyer Melvin
Publication year - 1968
Publication title -
behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 0005-7940
DOI - 10.1002/bs.3830130305
Subject(s) - prisoner's dilemma , dilemma , punishment (psychology) , superrationality , social psychology , psychology , social dilemma , mathematical economics , game theory , phenomenon , microeconomics , economics , mathematics , epistemology , geometry , philosophy
This study represents an extension of the Prisoner's Dilemma game paradigm to include those social interaction situations in which the magnitudes of the payoffs which players receive are “responsive” to the strategy choices which they make. The experiment used eight different sequences of Prisoner's Dilemma games, each containing 25 distinct games. Each sequence was characterized by successive increments or decrements in either the reward, the punishment, or both of these parameters. These parameter changes were made to be contingent upon the responses of the players. The most interesting results obtained in this study relate to the effects of changes in the punishment parameter of the Prisoner's Dilemma game. It was found that when reward is either moderate and fixed or increasing and large, a decreasing severity of punishment produced as much cooperative behavior as did an increasing severity of punishment. A phenomenon which is peculiar to dynamic games was also identified in this study. This has been termed “pseudocooperation” and refers to jointly competitive strategy choices made by the subjects, the outcomes of which are interpreted as being mutually beneficial rather than mutually punishing.