IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/wp751.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Communication, commitment, and deception in social dilemmas: experimental evidence

Author

Listed:
  • G. Camera
  • M. Casari
  • M. Bigoni

Abstract

Social norms of cooperation are studied under several forms of communication. In an experiment, strangers could make public statements before playing a prisoner s dilemma. The interaction was repeated indefinitely, which generated multiple equilibria. Communication could be used as a tool to either signal intentions to coordinate on Pareto-superior outcomes, to deceive others, or to credibly commit to actions. Some forms of communication did not promote the incidence of efficient Nash play, and sometimes reduced it. Surprisingly, cooperation suffered when subjects could publicly commit to actions.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Camera & M. Casari & M. Bigoni, 2011. "Communication, commitment, and deception in social dilemmas: experimental evidence," Working Papers wp751, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp751
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://amsacta.unibo.it/4489/1/WP751.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glenn Ellison, 1994. "Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma with Anonymous Random Matching," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 567-588.
    2. van Damme, Eric, 1989. "Renegotiation-proof equilibria in repeated prisoners' dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 206-217, February.
    3. Michihiro Kandori, 1992. "Social Norms and Community Enforcement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 63-80.
    4. Duffy, John & Ochs, Jack, 2009. "Cooperative behavior and the frequency of social interaction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 785-812, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Johne Bone & Michalis Drouvelis & Indrajit Ray, 2013. "Coordination in 2 x 2 Games by Following Recommendations from Correlated Equilibria," Discussion Papers 12-04, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    2. Duffy, John & Heinemann, Frank, 2021. "Central bank reputation, cheap talk and transparency as substitutes for commitment: Experimental evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 887-903.
    3. Lachlan Deer & Ralph-C. Bayer, 2016. "Pledges of Commitment and Cooperation in Partnerships," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-16, January.
    4. Bodnar, Olivia & Fremerey, Melinda & Normann, Hans-Theo & Schad, Jannika Leonie, 2021. "The effects of private damage claims on cartel activity: Experimental evidence," DICE Discussion Papers 315, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), revised 2021.
    5. Johne Bone & Michalis Drouvelis & Indrajit Ray, 2013. "Coordination in 2 x 2 Games by Following Recommendations from Correlated Equilibria," Discussion Papers 12-04r, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    6. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2016-053 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Waichman, Israel & Requate, Till & Siang, Ch’ng Kean, 2014. "Communication in Cournot competition: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1-16.
    8. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2012. "Explicit vs. tacit collusion—The impact of communication in oligopoly experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1759-1772.
    9. Schütte, Miriam & Thoma, Carmen, 2014. "Promises and Image Concerns," Discussion Papers in Economics 20861, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    10. Aurora García-Gallego & Penélope Hernández-Rojas & Amalia Rodrigo-González, 2013. "Endogenous vs. Exogenous Transmission of Information: An Experiment," Working Papers 2013/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xie, Huan & Lee, Yong-Ju, 2012. "Social norms and trust among strangers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 548-555.
    2. Heller, Yuval & Tubul, Itay, 2023. "Strategies in the repeated prisoner’s dilemma: A cluster analysis," MPRA Paper 117444, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Gabriele Camera & Marco Casari, 2007. "Cooperation among strangers: an experiment with indefinite interaction," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1201, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    4. Kenju Kamei, 2019. "Cooperation and endogenous repetition in an infinitely repeated social dilemma," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(3), pages 797-834, September.
    5. John Duffy & Huan Xie & Yong-Ju Lee, 2013. "Social norms, information, and trust among strangers: theory and evidence," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(2), pages 669-708, March.
    6. Lippert, Steffen & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2011. "Networks of relations and Word-of-Mouth Communication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 202-217, May.
    7. Kamei, Kenju, 2017. "Endogenous reputation formation under the shadow of the future," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 189-204.
    8. Camera, Gabriele & Casari, Marco & Bigoni, Maria, 2012. "Cooperative strategies in anonymous economies: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 570-586.
    9. Camera, Gabriele & Gioffré, Alessandro, 2022. "Cooperation in indefinitely repeated helping games: Existence and characterization," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1344-1356.
    10. Duffy, John & Xie, Huan, 2016. "Group size and cooperation among strangers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 55-74.
    11. John Duffy & Daniela Puzzello, 2011. "Gift Exchange versus Monetary Exchange: Theory and Evidence," Working Paper 449, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Sep 2013.
    12. Ghidoni, Riccardo & Cleave, Blair L. & Suetens, Sigrid, 2019. "Perfect and imperfect strangers in social dilemmas," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 148-159.
    13. Mitzkewitz, Michael & Neugebauer, Tibor, 2020. "Can intermediaries assure contracts? Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 354-368.
    14. Maria Bigoni & Gabriele Camera & Marco Casari, 2019. "Cooperation among strangers with and without a monetary system," Working Papers 19-01, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    15. Gabriele Camera & Cary Deck & David Porter, 2020. "Do economic inequalities affect long-run cooperation and prosperity?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 53-83, March.
    16. Xu, Xue & Potters, Jan, 2018. "An experiment on cooperation in ongoing organizations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 28-40.
    17. Sanchez-Pages Santiago & Straub Stéphane, 2010. "The Emergence of Institutions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, September.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Alexander Wolitzky, 2015. "Sustaining Cooperation: Community Enforcement vs. Specialized Enforcement," NBER Working Papers 21457, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2014. "Trust, but verify? When trustworthiness is observable only through (costly) monitoring," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 20, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    20. W. Bentley MacLeod, 2006. "Reputations, Relationships and the Enforcement of Incomplete Contracts," CESifo Working Paper Series 1730, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bol:bodewp:wp751. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.html .

    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.