When the classic prisoner dilemma game (PD) is played repeatedly in many rounds, is cooperation maintained? And male couples cooperate almost double female pairs? Both findings were reported in a great American experiment published more than half a century ago. Now, an experimental study that uses more rigorous methodological and statistical techniques and much larger financial incentives has corroborated both important findings in a population of the United Kingdom, despite the main changes in the state of women and gender attitudes during intermediate decades. A research group from the University of Leicester, the United Kingdom, Andrew Colman, Briony Pulford and Eva Krockow, investigated cooperation in a computer -controlled experiment in which 150 men and women played 300 rounds of two different PD games in fixed couples in fixed couples . The work is published in the magazine Psychological Act.
The PD game represents the strategic structure of any interaction in which two people improve it by cooperating than when deserting (not cooperating), but each tempted to a defect to obtain the best possible reward for themselves and leave the other person with the worst possible. pay off. According to the play theory, the rational players who know in advance the number of rounds they will play should defect in each round, because the dropout pays better than cooperation if the other person cooperates or defers defects, but the experiments invariably find levels of cooperation.
It has been widely informed in the literature that cooperation decreases in repeated EP, but in most experiments, only a small number of repetitions were used. The apparent decreases were not confirmed by the statistical analysis of the temporal series and may have been simple final effects of the game. Many years ago it was established that players tend to cooperate less in the last rounds, when they see that the end is approaching, and this can be confused with cooperation constantly decreasing by repetitions. Leicester researchers confirmed the final effect of the game in the six groups they studied (see the attached graphics), although the time series analysis confirmed that there was no significant general decrease in any of the groups.
American scientists reported an initial decrease in cooperation followed by constantly increasing cooperation, but this can be attributed to an unintentional effect of the quasi endgame on their study, according to Leicester researchers. American participants were asked to calculate their profit and losses at the end of 25 rounds, and this may have created a quasi effect on aging, reducing cooperation.
Leicester researchers also replicated the big gender difference that is originally found in the United States in the 1960s: women combined with women cooperated much less than men matched with men, with mixed gender peers that show intermediate levels of cooperation. This gender difference is a puzzle. It is much larger than most gender psychological differences and addresses conventional stereotypes of sexual roles. It cannot be explained by the players who adapt their levels of cooperation to the genres of their co-jughers, because in the United Kingdom experiment, the players had no way of knowing the genres of their playmates.
Professor Colman commented to the science presented: “Our most important finding was that the frequently claimed decrease in cooperation on repetitions seems to be an erroneous idea, perhaps driven by the expectation that there should be a constant convergence towards the theoretical balance of the theoretical balance of the Joint defect game as players better understand the game through experience. That is not the case. “On the gender difference in cooperation, Professor Colman said:” Some researchers have attributed this to risk aversion in women, but that cannot be correct, because the same difference occurs in Repeated chicken games, where greater risk aversion would make women more cooperatives than men. runs the risk of the worst reward. ” How, then, the gender difference can be explained? According to Professor Colman: “It is possibly related to women are more socially oriented and, therefore, more concerned than men about relative rewards instead of absolute. In the PD and the chicken, the defect is the only way to ensure that it does not come out worse than its co-player. ”
Image magazine and credit reference:
Colman, Andrew M., Pulford, Briony D. and Krockow, Eva M. “Persistent cooperation and gender differences in the repeated prisoner dilemma games: some things never change.” PSYCHOLOGICAL ACT 187 (2018): 1–8. DOI: 10.1016/J.actsy.2018.04.014
About the authors
Andrew Colman, Ph.D.
Teacher
Andrew M. Colman is a professor of psychology at the University of Leicester, a member of the British Psychology Society and member of the Academy of Higher Education. He graduated from the University of Cabo, where he was appointed for his first conference position, and then gave a conference at Rhodes University before moving to Leicester. Its main research interests are judgment and decision making, games theory and experimental games, cooperative reasoning, the evolution of cooperation and psychometry. His is the author of more than 160 magazine articles reviewed by peers and several books, including the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (4th EDN, 2015), A SPSS blocking course for Windows (4th edn, co -author of Briony D. Pulford, 2008), Game theory and their applications in social and biological sciences (2nd edition, 1995), What is psychology? (3rd edition, 1999), and Facts, fallacies and fraud in psychology (1987). He edited the Routledge Companion psychology encyclopedia (1994), the volume of 12 Essential Psychology of Longman Series (1995).
Briony Pulford, Ph.D.
associate professor
Briony Pulford is an associate professor of Psychology at the University of Leicester, where she has worked since 2004. He has led the multidisciplinary group of Leicester’s judgment and the research of decision making since 2010. His interests are found in social and cognitive psychology. Briony’s research covers many areas of judgment and decision making, with particular interests in cooperation, team reasoning, game theory, excess of confidence, communication and perception of confidence, confidence, moral judgment and aversion to ambiguity. Your Ph.D. He cares about how people are too confident in their judgments, but since then she has been working on how people perceive and interpret trust and uncertainty in communication and how this affects decision making. She has been involved in the test of heuristic trust and examining how people use information about the confidence of other people. In his research in games theory, Briony says that one of his most exciting research moments was Methodological problems and quasi effects on the game. It only seems to cause a decrease.
Eva Krockow, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Eva Krockow is a professor (assistant professor) in Psychology at Leicester University and leader of the Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavior’s Health & Wellbeing Research Group. His research focuses on understanding the central principles of cooperation and dropout, which he studies modeling human elections in abstract and experimental games. More recently, Eva has been applying this theoretical knowledge to the medical decision -making area, including the use of antibiotics. It is particularly interested in the perceptions of risk and uncertainty underlying the antibiotic treatment options and collective intelligence approaches to optimize health -related decisions. Part of Eva’s work also implies the analysis of intercultural differences in decision making. More recently, her international research has taken her to Japan, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Eva uses a variety of methodological approaches in your research, including qualitative interviews, quantitative experiments and computational modeling. Eva is passionate about scientific communication and writes regular blogs with decision -making research for psychology today (https://www.psychologytody.com/gb/blog/stretching- Theory).
Main image credit: Giulia ForsytheFlickr
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