The Effects of Strategy and Reward Structure on the Development of Cooperation

Abstract

The way in which Prisoner's Dilemma type games are presented to players has been shown to have an effect on how they play. In addition, differences in programmed strategies have been shown to affect the game-playing behavior of subjects. The present study compares the effects of different ways of presenting the game reward structure to the subjects, as well as the effects that the different strategies of an opponent have on the subject's game-playing behavior. The following games were compared: A basic two-person Prisoner's Dilemma Game, a two-group Prisoner's Dilemma Game, a three-person Prisoner's Dilemma Game, and three two-person Decomposed Prisoner Dilemmas Games. Within each game the effects of three programmed strategies were compared: Unconditional Benevolence, Conditional Benevolence, and Unconditional Malevolence.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1967
Accession Number
AD0662663

Entities

People

  • Miriam G. Keiffer
  • Morton Deutsch

Organizations

  • Columbia University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Analysis Of Variance
  • Control Panels
  • Cooperation
  • Factorial Design
  • Game Theory
  • Hostility
  • Human Behavior
  • Instructions
  • Instructors
  • Matrix Games
  • Military Research
  • New York
  • Prisoners
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Universities

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Game Theory.
  • Theoretical Analysis.