IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v17y1973i2p321-333.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Asymmetry of Payoff Structure and Cooperative Behavior in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game

Author

Listed:
  • J.P. Sheposh

    (Department of Psychology California State University, San Diego)

  • P.S. Gallo JR

    (Department of Psychology California State University, San Diego)

Abstract

This study compares the effect of a standard symmetric Prisoner's Dilemma game and an asymmetric Prisoner's Dilemma game on choice behavior. The two types of Prisoner's Dilemma games were crossed with two sets of payoff matrices, thus generating four experimental conditions. It was predicted that subjects in the asymmetric game condition would manifest less cooperative behavior than subjects in the symmetric game condition. This effect would be due primarily to the significantly lower amount of cooperation for subjects assigned to the low potential reward position. The predicted outcomes were supported. It was concluded that concern with relative outcomes, and in particular concern with being surpassed by other, rather than maximization of own outcomes was the primary motivating factor underlying this finding.

Suggested Citation

  • J.P. Sheposh & P.S. Gallo JR, 1973. "Asymmetry of Payoff Structure and Cooperative Behavior in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 17(2), pages 321-333, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:17:y:1973:i:2:p:321-333
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/17/2/321.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dasgupta Utteeyo, 2011. "Are Entry Threats Always Credible?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-41, December.
    2. Barthel, Anne-Christine & Hoffmann, Eric & Monaco, Andrew, 2019. "Coordination and learning in games with strategic substitutes and complements," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 53-65.
    3. Ert, Eyal & Cohen-Amin, Shier & Dinar, Ariel, 2019. "The effect of issue linkage on cooperation in bilateral conflicts: An experimental analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 134-142.
    4. Yoshio Kamijo & Yoichi Hizen & Tatsuyoshi Saijo & Teruyuki Tamura, 2019. "Voting on Behalf of a Future Generation: A Laboratory Experiment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Schaerer, Michael & du Plessis, Christilene & Yap, Andy J. & Thau, Stefan, 2018. "Low power individuals in social power research: A quantitative review, theoretical framework, and empirical test," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 73-96.

    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:sae:jocore:v:17:y:1973:i:2:p:321-333. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.