Mindreading and Manipulation in an Ecology of Prisoner’s Dilemma Games: Laboratory Experiments

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Myagkov ◽  
John Orbell
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nobuhiro Mifune

Abstract Whether intergroup conflict is a necessary condition for the evolution of human prosociality has been a matter of debate. At the center of the debate is the coevolutionary model of parochial altruism—that human cooperation with in-group members has coevolved with aggression toward out-group members. Studies using the intergroup prisoner’s dilemma–maximizing difference game to test the model have repeatedly shown that people do not exhibit out-group aggression, possibly because of an inappropriate operationalization and framing of out-group aggression. The coevolutionary model predicts out-group aggression when the actor understands that it will lead to the in-group’s benefit. However, in the game, such an aspect of out-group aggression that benefits the in-group is typically not well communicated to participants. Thus, this study tested the hypothesis that out-group aggression in the game would be promoted by a framing that emphasizes that attacking out-group members enhances the in-group’s gain. Results of two laboratory experiments with 176 Japanese university students in total showed that such a framing did not promote out-group aggression and individuals invested more money to cooperate with in-group members only, avoiding the strategy of cooperating with in-group members to harm out-group members. These results do not support the coevolutionary model.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nobuhiro Mifune

AbstractWhether intergroup conflict is a necessary condition for the evolution of human prosociality has been a matter of debate. At the center of the debate is the coevolutionary model of parochial altruism—that human cooperation with in-group members has coevolved with aggression toward out-group members. Studies using the intergroup prisoner’s dilemma–maximizing difference game to test the model have repeatedly shown that people do not exhibit out-group aggression, possibly because of an inappropriate operationalization and framing of out-group aggression. The coevolutionary model predicts out-group aggression when the actor understands that it will lead to the in-group’s benefit. However, in the game, such an aspect of out-group aggression that benefits the in-group is typically not well communicated to participants. Thus, this study tested the hypothesis that out-group aggression in the game would be promoted by a framing that emphasizes that attacking out-group members enhances the in-group’s gain. Results of two laboratory experiments with 176 Japanese university students in total showed that such a framing did not promote out-group aggression and individuals invested more money to cooperate with in-group members only, avoiding the strategy of cooperating with in-group members to harm out-group members. These results do not support the coevolutionary model.


1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 179-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beate Schuster

Zusammenfassung: Der soziometrische Status und der Viktimisierungsstatus von 5. bis 11. Klässlern wurde ermittelt, der Status hypothetischer InteraktionspartnerInnen sowie deren angebliche Wahlen variiert, und die Reaktionen im Gefangenendilemma erfaßt. Die Reaktionen wurden sowohl durch die experimentell vorgegebenen als auch durch die erwarteten Wahlen der InteraktionspartnerInnen bestimmt: Kooperative Zuege wurden eher kooperativ, und kompetitive Zuege eher kompetitiv beantwortet. Darüber hinaus vermieden Mobbingopfer kompetitive Züge, während zwei Untergruppen der Abgelehnten gegensätzliche Strategiepräferenzen aufwiesen: Versuchspersonen, die sowohl Ablehnung als auch Mobbing erfahren («Viktimisiert-Abgelehnte») verhielten sich besonders kooperativ; abgelehnte ProbandInnen, die nicht viktimisiert werden («Nicht-viktimisiert-Abgelehnte») dagegen vergleichsweise kompetitiv. Die kooperativen Wahlen viktimisierter Versuchspersonen wurden nicht erwidert: Die Versuchspersonen reagierten gegenüber den Viktimisierten kompetitiver als sich die Viktimisierten ihrerseits gegenüber ihren InteraktionspartnerInnen verhielten. Diese Befunde bestätigen die Notwendigkeit, bei «Abgelehnten» zwei Untergruppen auf der Basis der Viktimisierungsdimension zu unterscheiden. Die Befunde werden ferner vor dem Hintergrund der Hypothese diskutiert, daß die Submissivität potentieller Opfer mit zu ihrer Viktimisierungs-Erfahrung beiträgt.


Author(s):  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Raoul Bell ◽  
Axel Buchner

Abstract. The present study serves to test how positive and negative appearance-based expectations affect cooperation and punishment. Participants played a prisoner’s dilemma game with partners who either cooperated or defected. Then they were given a costly punishment option: They could spend money to decrease the payoffs of their partners. Aggregated over trials, participants spent more money for punishing the defection of likable-looking and smiling partners compared to punishing the defection of unlikable-looking and nonsmiling partners, but only because participants were more likely to cooperate with likable-looking and smiling partners, which provided the participants with more opportunities for moralistic punishment. When expressed as a conditional probability, moralistic punishment did not differ as a function of the partners’ facial likability. Smiling had no effect on the probability of moralistic punishment, but punishment was milder for smiling in comparison to nonsmiling partners.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Testori ◽  
M Kempf ◽  
RB Hoyle ◽  
Hedwig Eisenbarth

© 2019 Hogrefe Publishing. Personality traits have been long recognized to have a strong impact on human decision-making. In this study, a sample of 314 participants took part in an online game to investigate the impact of psychopathic traits on cooperative behavior in an iterated Prisoner's dilemma game. We found that disinhibition decreased the maintenance of cooperation in successive plays, but had no effect on moving toward cooperation after a previous defection or on the overall level of cooperation over rounds. Furthermore, our results underline the crucial importance of a good model selection procedure, showing how a poor choice of statistical model can provide misleading results.


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