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Power Asymmetries and Punishment in a Prisoner’s Dilemma with Variable Cooperative Investment

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  • Jonathan E Bone
  • Brian Wallace
  • Redouan Bshary
  • Nichola J Raihani

Abstract

In many two-player games, players that invest in punishment finish with lower payoffs than those who abstain from punishing. These results question the effectiveness of punishment at promoting cooperation, especially when retaliation is possible. It has been suggested that these findings may stem from the unrealistic assumption that all players are equal in terms of power. However, a previous empirical study which incorporated power asymmetries into an iterated prisoner's dilemma (IPD) game failed to show that power asymmetries stabilize cooperation when punishment is possible. Instead, players cooperated in response to their partner cooperating, and punishment did not yield any additional increase in tendency to cooperate. Nevertheless, this previous study only allowed an all-or-nothing–rather than a variable–cooperation investment. It is possible that power asymmetries increase the effectiveness of punishment from strong players only when players are able to vary their investment in cooperation. We tested this hypothesis using a modified IPD game which allowed players to vary their investment in cooperation in response to being punished. As in the previous study, punishment from strong players did not increase cooperation under any circumstances. Thus, in two-player games with symmetric strategy sets, punishment does not appear to increase cooperation.

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  • Jonathan E Bone & Brian Wallace & Redouan Bshary & Nichola J Raihani, 2016. "Power Asymmetries and Punishment in a Prisoner’s Dilemma with Variable Cooperative Investment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-16, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0155773
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155773
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Davies, Clem & Franke, Marcel & Kuang, Lida & Neumärker, Karl Justus Bernhard, 2022. "A contractarian view on homann's ethical approach: The vision of "new ordoliberalism"," The Constitutional Economics Network Working Papers 01-2022, University of Freiburg, Department of Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory.
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    9. Wang, Zi-Ren & Deng, Zheng-Hong & Wang, Huan-Bo & Li, HuXiong & X, Fei-Wang, 2022. "Uneven Resources network promotes cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 413(C).
    10. Huang, Yi Jie & Deng, Zheng Hong & Song, Qun & Wu, Tao & Deng, Zhi Long & Gao, Ming yu, 2019. "The evolution of cooperation in multi-games with aspiration-driven updating rule," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 313-317.
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