Resilient cooperators stabilize long-run cooperation in the finitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma

Mao, Andrew; Dworkin, Lili; Suri, Siddharth; Watts, Duncan J.

doi:10.1038/ncomms13800

Cited by 44 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…10 Online Appendix A.1 also discusses several recent papers (Mao et al (2017); Schneider & Weber (2013); Kagel & McGee (2016); Cox et al (2015); Kamei & Putterman (2015)) that study heterogeneity in cooperative behavior and the role of reputation building in the finitely repeated PD.…”

Section: Theoretical Considerations and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma*

Embrey

Fréchette

Yüksel

2017

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

116

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More than half a century after the first experiment on the finitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma, evidence on whether cooperation decreases with experience—as suggested by backward induction—remains inconclusive. This article provides a meta-analysis of prior experimental research and reports the results of a new experiment to elucidate how cooperation varies with the environment in this canonical game. We describe forces that affect initial play (formation of cooperation) and unraveling (breakdown of cooperation). First, contrary to the backward induction prediction, the parameters of the repeated game have a significant effect on initial cooperation. We identify how these parameters impact the value of cooperation—as captured by the size of the basin of attraction of always defect—to account for an important part of this effect. Second, despite these initial differences, the evolution of behavior is consistent with the unraveling logic of backward induction for all parameter combinations. Importantly, despite the seemingly contradictory results across studies, this article establishes a systematic pattern of behavior: subjects converge to use threshold strategies that conditionally cooperate until a threshold round; conditional on establishing cooperation, the first defection round moves earlier with experience. Simulation results generated from a learning model estimated at the subject level provide insights into the long-term dynamics and the forces that slow down the unraveling of cooperation.

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Section: Theoretical Considerations and Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma*

Embrey

Fréchette

Yüksel

2017

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

116

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“…10 Several recent papers (Mao et al (2017); Schneider & Weber (2013); Kagel & McGee (2016); Cox et al (2015); Kamei & Putterman (2015)) study heterogeneity in cooperative behavior and the role of reputation building in the finitely repeated PD. In Online Appendix A.1, we also include a discussion of these papers.…”

Section: The Meta-studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma

2015

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More than half a century after the first experiment on the finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma, evidence on whether cooperation decreases with experience-as suggested by backward induction-remains inconclusive. This paper provides a metaanalysis of prior experimental research and reports the results of a new experiment to elucidate how cooperation varies with the environment in this canonical game. We describe forces that affect initial play (formation of cooperation) and unraveling (breakdown of cooperation). First, contrary to the backward induction prediction, the parameters of the repeated game have a significant effect on initial cooperation. We identify how these parameters impact the value of cooperation-as captured by the size of the basin of attraction of Always Defect-to account for an important part of this effect. Second, despite these initial differences, the evolution of behavior is consistent with the unraveling logic of backward induction for all parameter combinations. Importantly, despite the seemingly contradictory results across studies, this paper establishes a systematic pattern of behavior: subjects converge to use threshold strategies that conditionally cooperate until a threshold round; and conditional on establishing cooperation, the first defection round moves earlier with experience. Simulation results generated from a learning model estimated at the subject level provide insights into the long-term dynamics and the forces that slow down the unraveling of cooperation.

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“…Although the number of synchronous online experiments is on the rise [175,132,133], most of them make use of customized implementations, leaving a large number of open methodological challenges yet to be solved [19]. So far, researchers trying to pursue this approach get side-tracked mostly by the tedious logistics of randomiza- while non-commercial (open-source or free) products include jsPsych [51] and Psy-Toolkit [189,188].…”

Section: The Interactive Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Prisoner's Dilemma, where defection is the prevailing action in one-shot interactions, cooperation can be sustained when interactions are repeated and participants can remember previous actions of their peers [153]. Moreover, cooperation can be further sustained in long-run experiments (i.e., lasting for 20 consecutive weekdays [132]) and real-time interactions (i.e., going from discrete-time to continuous-time increases cooperation from 40% to 90% [76]).…”

Section: Timescale: Social Interactions Evolve Over "Time"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Stable Principles of Collective Intelligence under an Environment-Dependent Framework

Almaatouq¹

2020

Preprint

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A large body of work has shown that a group of individuals can often achieve higher levels of intelligence than the group members working alone. Despite these expectations of group advantage, many examples of collective failure have been documented—from market crashes to the spread of false and harmful rumors. To reconcile these results, a major effort in the study of collective decision making has been focused on understanding the role of group composition and communication patterns in promoting the "wisdom of the crowd" or, conversely, leading to "madness of the mob." In the past decades, much of this effort has been devoted to inferring the importance of a particular attribute, in isolation, by its capacity to explain the accuracy of collective judgments. In this thesis, we argue that such a perspective can lead to inconsistent conclusions: an `incoherency problem.' We assert that the importance of an individual-level or structural attribute may change as a function of the environment in which the group is situated. Hence, we propose a research agenda to investigate the relative importance of the group composition and the structure of interaction networks under an environment-dependent framework. We show that under such a framework, we can reconcile previously conflicting claims from the collective intelligence literature and motivate a future research program to identify stable principles of collective performance. Although implementing such a program is logistically challenging, "virtual lab" experiments of the sort discussed in this thesis, in combination with emerging "open science" practices such as pre-registration, data availability, open code, and "many-labs" collaborations, offer a promising route forward.

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Resilient cooperators stabilize long-run cooperation in the finitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma

Cited by 44 publications

References 53 publications

Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma*

Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma*

Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma

Towards Stable Principles of Collective Intelligence under an Environment-Dependent Framework

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