Average player traits as predictors of cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma

Al-Ubaydli, Omar and Jones, Garett and Weel, Jaap (2014): Average player traits as predictors of cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma.

Abstract

Many studies have looked at how individual player traits influence individual choice in the repeated prisoner’s dilemma, but few studies have looked at how the average traits of pairs of players influence the average choices of pairs. We consider cognitive ability, patience, risk tolerance, and the Big Five personality measures as predictors of individual and average group choices in a ten-round repeated prisoner’s dilemma. We find that a pair’s average cognitive ability measured by the Raven’s IQ test predicts average cooperation rates robustly and average earnings more modestly. Higher individual cognitive ability also predicts a greater probability of sustaining cooperation in the second round, suggesting that positive reciprocity is more likely among players with higher Raven’s scores. Openness is the only control variable that predicts first-round cooperative behavior.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: cooperation; IQ; personality; discount rate; patience; risk-aversion; prisoner's dilemma
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D02 - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact; D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations > D23 - Organizational Behavior ; Transaction Costs ; Property Rights; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O43 - Institutions and Growth

References

Al-Ubaydli O, Jones G, Weel J 2013. Patience, cognitive skill, and coordination in the repeated stag hunt. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology and Economics. 6(2), 71-96.

Andreoni J, Sprenger C 2012. Estimating time preferences from convex budgets. American Economic Review. 102(7), 3333-56.

Andersen S, Harrison G, Lau M, Rutstrom E 2006. Elicitation using multiple price list formats. Experimental Economics, 9, 383-405.

Andersen S, Harrison G, Lau M Rutstrom E 2008. Eliciting risk and time preferences, Econometrica, May, 76(3), 583-618.

Axelrod R 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.

Balliet D, Li NP, Macfarlan SJ, Van Vugt M 2011. Sex differences in cooperation: a meta-analytic review of social dilemmas. Psychol Bulletin. 2011 Nov;137(6):881-909.

Bargh JA 2006. What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36(2), 147-168.

Ben-Ner A, Halldorsson F 2010. Trusting and trustworthiness: What are they, how to measure them, and what affects them, Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 31, Issue 1, February 2010, Pages 64-79.

Boone C, De Brabander B, van Witteloostuijn A 1999. The impact of personality on behavior in five Prisoner's Dilemma games, Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 20, Issue 3, June 1999, Pages 343-377.

Borghans L, Duckworth A, Heckman J, Weel B 2008. The economics and psychology of personality traits, Journal of Human Resources, 43, 972-1059.

Burks SV, Carpenter JP, Goette L, Rustichini A 2009. Cognitive skills affect economic preferences, strategic behavior, and job attachment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(19), 7745-7750.

Burnham TC, Cesarini D, Johannesson M, Lichtenstein P, Wallace B 2009. Higher cognitive ability is associated with lower entries in a p-beauty contest, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 72, Issue 1, October, Pages 171-175.

Devine DJ, Philips JL 2001. Do smarter teams do better: A meta-analysis of cognitive ability and team performance. Small Group Res. 32, 507.

Duffy S, Smith J 2012. Cognitive Load in the Multi-Player Prisoner's Dilemma Game: Are There Brains in Games? Working paper, Rutgers University.

Epley N, Gilovich T 2004. Are adjustments insufficient? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, p447-460.

Frey MC, Detterman DK 2004. Scholastic assessment or g? The relationship between the Scholastic Assessment Test and general cognitive ability. Psychological Science, 15, 373–378.

Gill D, Prowse V 2012. Cognitive ability and learning to play equilibrium: A level-k analysis. Working paper, Munich Personal RePEc Archive.

Glöckner A, Hilbig, BE 2012. Risk is relative: Risk aversion yields cooperation rather than defection in cooperation-friendly environments. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 546-553.

Harris AC, Madden GJ 2002. Delay Discounting and Performance on the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Psychological Record, 52: 429-440.

Harrison G, Lau M, Williams M 2002. Estimating individual discount rates in Denmark: A field experiment, American Economic Review, 92, p1606-1617.

Harrison G, Rutstrom E 2008. Risk aversion in the laboratory. J. Cox and G. Harrison (eds.), Risk Aversion in Experiments (Bingley, UK: Emerald, Research in Experimental Economics, Volume 12).

Hey J, Orme C 1994. Investigating generalizations of expected utility theory using experimental data. Econometrica, 62(6), 1291-326.

Hirsh, JG, Peterson JB 2009. Extraversion, Neuroticism, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 254-256.

Holt C, Laury S 2002. Risk aversion and incentive effects. American Economic Review, 92, p1644-1655.

Hunt, EB 1995. Will We Be Smart Enough? A Cognitive Analysis of the Coming Workforce. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Jones, G 2008. Are smarter groups more cooperative? Evidence from prisoner’s dilemma experiments, 1959-2003, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 68(3-4), p489-497.

Jones, G 2013. Are smarter groups more cooperative? Results for corrected and extended datasets. Working paper, George Mason University.

Jones, MT 2012. Strategic Complexity and Cooperation: An Experimental Study. Working paper, Ohio State University.

Koopmans R, Rebers S 2009. Collective action in culturally similar and dissimilar groups: an experiment on parochialism, conditional cooperation, and their linkages. Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 30, Issue 3, May, Pages 201-211.

Kurzban R, Houser D 2005. Experiments investigating cooperative types in humans: A complement to evolutionary theory and simulations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(5), 1803-1807.

Lönnqvist J-E, Verkasalo M, Walkowitz G 2011. It pays to pay – Big Five personality influences on co-operative behaviour in an incentivized and hypothetical prisoner’s dilemma game. Personality and Individual Differences. 50(2), 300-304.

Mackintosh NJ 1998. IQ and human intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Milinski M, Wedekind C 1998. Working memory constrains human cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95(23), 13755-13758.

Mueller DC 2003. Public Choice III. New York: Cambridge UP.

Neisser U, Boodoo G, Bouchard T, Boykin A, Brody N, Ceci S, Halpern D, Loehlin J, Perloff R, Sternberg R, Urbina S 1995. Intelligence: Knows and unknowns, American Psychologist, 51, p77-101.

Putterman L, Tyran JR, Kamei K 2011. Public goods and voting on formal sanction schemes. Journal of Public Economics, 95(9), 1213-1222.

Sabater-Grande G, Georgantzis N 2002. Accounting for risk aversion in repeated prisoners’ dilemma games: an experimental test, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 48, Issue 1, pages 37-50.

Sally D 1995. Conversation and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: A Meta-Analysis of Experiments from 1958 to 1992, Rationality and Society 1995 7: 58.

Segal NL, Hershberger, SL 1999. Cooperation and competition between twins: Findings from a prisoner’s dilemma game. Evolution and Human Behavior, 20(1), 29-51.

Shamosh NA, Gray JR 2008. Delay discounting and intelligence: A meta-analysis. Intelligence, 36(4), 289-305.

Terhune KW 1974. "Wash-In," "Wash-Out," and Systemic Effects in Extended Prisoner's Dilemma. Journal of Conflict Resolution , Vol. 18, No. 4 (Dec), 656-685.

van den Bos W, Westenberg M, van Dijk E, Crone EA 2010. Development of trust and reciprocity in adolescence. Cognitive Development, Volume 25, Issue 1, January–March, 90-102.

Volk S, Thöni C, Ruigrok W 2012. Temporal stability and psychological foundations of cooperation preferences. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 81(2), 664-676.

Wilcox N 2011. Stochastically more risk averse: A contextual theory of stochastic discrete choice under risk. Journal of Econometrics, 162(1), 89-104.

Woolley AW, Chabris CF, Pentland A, Hashmi N, Malone TW 2010. Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups. Science, 29 October, 330 (6004).

Yi R, Johnson MW, Bickel WK 2005. Relationship between cooperation in an iterated prisoner's dilemma game and the discounting of hypothetical outcomes. Learning & behavior, 33(3), 324-336.