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When is the risk of cooperation worth taking? The prisoner’s dilemma as a game of multiple motives

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  • Christoph Engel
  • Lilia Zhurakhovska

Abstract

This experimental article helps to understand the motives behind cooperation in the prisoner’s dilemma. It manipulates the pay-off in case both players defect in a two-player, one-shot prisoner’s dilemma and explains the degree of cooperation by a combination of four motives: efficiency, conditional cooperation, fear and greed. All motives are significant but some become only significant if one controls for all remaining ones. This seems to be the reason why earlier attempts at explaining choices in the prisoner’s dilemma with personality have not been successful.

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  • Christoph Engel & Lilia Zhurakhovska, 2016. "When is the risk of cooperation worth taking? The prisoner’s dilemma as a game of multiple motives," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(16), pages 1157-1161, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:23:y:2016:i:16:p:1157-1161
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2016.1139672
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    2. Angeliki Antoniou, 2019. "Compatibility of Small Team Personalities in Computer-Based Tasks," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, May.
    3. Gächter, Simon & Lee, Kyeongtae & Sefton, Martin & Weber, Till O., 2024. "The role of payoff parameters for cooperation in the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    4. Capraro, Valerio & Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael & Ruiz-Martos, Maria J., 2020. "Preferences for efficiency, rather than preferences for morality, drive cooperation in the one-shot Stag-Hunt game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    5. Simon Gaechter & Kyeongtae Lee & Martin Sefton & Till O. Weber, 2021. "Risk, Temptation, and Efficiency in the One-Shot Prisoner's Dilemma," CESifo Working Paper Series 9449, CESifo.
    6. Simon Gaechter & Kyeongtae Lee & Martin Sefton, 2020. "Risk, Temptation, and Efficiency in Prisoner's Dilemmas," Discussion Papers 2020-15, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    7. Valerio Capraro & Joseph Y Halpern, 2019. "Translucent players: Explaining cooperative behavior in social dilemmas," Rationality and Society, , vol. 31(4), pages 371-408, November.
    8. Thorsten Chmura & Christoph Engel & Markus Englerth, 2013. "Selfishness As a Potential Cause of Crime. A Prison Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    9. Li, Yumeng & Wang, Hanchen & Du, Wenbo & Perc, Matjaž & Cao, Xianbin & Zhang, Jun, 2019. "Resonance-like cooperation due to transaction costs in the prisoner’s dilemma game," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 521(C), pages 248-257.
    10. Sudipta Mukherjee, 2022. "Consumer altruism and risk taking: why do altruistic consumers take more risks?," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 19(4), pages 781-803, December.
    11. Antoni Bosch-Domènech & Joaquim Silvestre, 2017. "The role of frames, numbers and risk in the frequency of cooperation," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(3), pages 245-267, September.
    12. Valeria Maggian & Ludovica Spinola, 2024. "Spillover effects of cooperative behaviour when switching tasks: the role of gender," Working Papers 2024: 09, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

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