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Personality and cooperation in finitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games

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  • Kagel, John
  • McGee, Peter

Abstract

We investigate the role personality plays in Finitely Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma (FRPD) games. Even after controlling for demographic factors such as race, course of study, and cognitive ability, we find that cooperative behavior is significantly related to the Big Five personality trait Agreeableness. A one standard deviation increase in agreeableness increases the predicted probability of cooperation by a subject with modal demographic characteristics from 67.9% to 80.6%.

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  • Kagel, John & McGee, Peter, 2014. "Personality and cooperation in finitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 274-277.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:124:y:2014:i:2:p:274-277
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.05.034
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Finitely repeated prisoner dilemma; Personality; Cooperation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

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