IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v5y2014i1d10.1038_ncomms4976.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Extortion subdues human players but is finally punished in the prisoner’s dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Hilbe

    (Evolutionary Theory Group, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology
    Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University)

  • Torsten Röhl

    (Evolutionary Theory Group, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology)

  • Manfred Milinski

    (Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology)

Abstract

Extortion is the practice of obtaining advantages through explicit forces and threats. Recently, it was demonstrated that even the repeated prisoner’s dilemma, one of the key models to explain mutual cooperation, allows for implicit forms of extortion. According to the theory, extortioners demand and receive an excessive share of any surplus, which allows them to outperform any adapting co-player. To explore the performance of such strategies against humans, we have designed an economic experiment in which participants were matched either with an extortioner or with a generous co-player. Although extortioners succeeded against each of their human opponents, extortion resulted in lower payoffs than generosity. Human subjects showed a strong concern for fairness: they punished extortion by refusing to fully cooperate, thereby reducing their own, and even more so, the extortioner’s gains. Thus, the prospects of extorting others in social relationships seem limited; in the long run, generosity is more profitable.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Hilbe & Torsten Röhl & Manfred Milinski, 2014. "Extortion subdues human players but is finally punished in the prisoner’s dilemma," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-6, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms4976
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4976
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4976
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms4976?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Chaoqian & Huang, Chaochao & Pan, Qiuhui & He, Mingfeng, 2022. "Modeling the social dilemma of involution on a square lattice," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    2. Kang, Kai & Tian, Jinyan & Zhang, Boyu, 2024. "Cooperation and control in asymmetric repeated games," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 470(C).
    3. Feng, Tian-Jiao & Fan, Song-Jia & Li, Cong & Tao, Yi & Zheng, Xiu-Deng, 2023. "Noise-induced sustainability of cooperation in Prisoner's Dilemma game," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 438(C).
    4. Feng, Sinan & Liu, Xuesong, 2024. "Effects of three-faced strategy on the evolution of cooperation in social dilemma," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 639(C).
    5. Masahiko Ueda, 2022. "Controlling Conditional Expectations by Zero-Determinant Strategies," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-22, September.
    6. Jin-Li Guo, 2014. "Zero-determinant strategies in iterated multi-strategy games," Papers 1409.1786, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2014.
    7. Xiang Wei & Peng Xu & Shuiting Du & Guanghui Yan & Huayan Pei, 2021. "Reputational preference-based payoff punishment promotes cooperation in spatial social dilemmas," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 94(10), pages 1-7, October.
    8. Xie, Kai & Liu, Xingwen & Wang, Huazhang & Jiang, Yulian, 2023. "Multi-heterogeneity public goods evolutionary game on lattice," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    9. Pan, Qiuhui & Wang, Linpeng & He, Mingfeng, 2020. "Social dilemma based on reputation and successive behavior," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 384(C).
    10. Jun Qian & Tongda Zhang & Xiao Sun & Yueting Chai, 2023. "The coordination of collective and individual solutions in risk-resistant scenarios," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 96(2), pages 1-15, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms4976. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.