Decision making in the prisoner's dilemma game: The effect of exit on cooperation and social welfare

Abstract

The prisoner's dilemma game is a mixed‐motive game that offers two players the simultaneous choice between a cooperative and a defective alternative. An often neglected aspect of such a binary‐choice game, however, is that in many real‐life encounters, people can choose not only to cooperate or defect, but they also have a third option: to exit the social dilemma. Although in the literature a consensus has emerged that the addition of an exit opportunity benefits cooperation, there is only scant research into its effect on social welfare. In order to allow a direct comparison of cooperation rates and welfare levels across binary‐choice and trinary‐choice games, in this study, we used a design in which the same participants played similar games with and without an exit option (i.e., a within‐subjects design), and this in a range of structural variations. The findings of our study indicated that the aggregated outcome of both players is generally lower in games with an exit option than in games without an exit option. Moreover, our results showed that the efficiency of the exit option strongly depends on the specific outcome structure of the game (in terms of its endowment size, (a)symmetry, and level of noncorrespondence). In the discussion, it is argued that the implementation of an exit option as a strategy to increase social welfare should be critically assessed.

Exit rights open complex pathways to cooperation

“…If, however, one researcher outright abandons the project for another project with a smaller but immediate payoff, the remaining researcher is left with little hope for success. The view that the exit option is beneficial for cooperation is being challenged by a new psychological study [57]. In their social-dilemma experiment, the authors find that, with the introduction of exit rights, exiting replaces defection, which is in line with our model's predictions.…”

“…The view that the exit option is beneficial for cooperation is being challenged by a new psychological study [57]. In their social-dilemma experiment, the authors find that, with the introduction of exit rights, exiting replaces defection, which is in line with our model's predictions.…”

“…It should not be forgotten here that, as the exit pay-off becomes too large, exiters completely overpower the other two actor types. Haesevoets et al [57] conclude that 'both research and practice can gain greatly in richness by giving more consideration to exit options in the study of cooperation', which is-given the richness of our results-a sentiment that we wholeheartedly agree with.…”

“…The view that exit option is beneficial for cooperation is being challenged by a new psychological study [30]. If the exit payoff is too large, our model supports this observation.…”

Behavioural Consistency within the Prisoner'S Dilemma Game: The Role of Personality and Situation

“…7 Upon completion of the PDGs, participants also were presented with a series of games in which the cooperative and noncooperative options were accompanied by an additional exit option. We excluded these trinary-choice games from the analyses reported in the current manuscript (these data are reported in a separate article about the influence of exit options on cooperation and social welfare, see Haesevoets, Bostyn, Reinders Folmer, Roets, & Van Hiel, 2018).…”