Effective Choice in the Prisoner's Dilemma

1980/03/01 by Robert Axelrod · 33 citations
Social Sciences · Decision Sciences · #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Game Theory and Applications

paper · doi:10.1177/002200278002400101

Abstract

This is a “primer” on how to play the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game effectively. Existing research approaches offer the participant limited help in understanding how to cope effectively with such interactions. To gain a deeper understanding of how to be effective in such a partially competitive and partially cooperative environment, a computer tournament was conducted for the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. Decision rules were submitted by entrants who were recruited primarily from experts in game theory from a variety of disciplines: psychology, political science, economics, sociology, and mathematics. The results of the tournament demonstrate that there are subtle reasons for an individualistic pragmatist to cooperate as long as the other side does, to be somewhat for-giving, and to be optimistic about the other side's responsiveness.

Cited by

• Great-Power Cooperation under Conditions of Limited Reciprocity: From Empirical to Formal Analysis
• Theology and Metaphysics in Sombre, Scientific Times
• Contest dynamics between cooperation and exploitation
• Learning Reciprocity in Complex Sequential Social Dilemmas
• Interaction state Q-learning promotes cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game
• Evolutionary games on graphs
• A Turing Test of Kindness: Identity Transparency, Perceived Intelligence, and Linguistic Anthropomorphism in Prosocial Exchange with AI
• Global Convergence for Replicator Dynamics of Repeated Snowdrift Games
• Is Tit-for-Tat the Answer? On the Conclusions Drawn from Axelrod's Tournaments. [europepmc]
• Reinforcement learning produces dominant strategies for the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. [europepmc]
• Evolution reinforces cooperation with the emergence of self-recognition mechanisms: An empirical study of strategies in the Moran process for the iterated prisoner's dilemma. [europepmc]
• Older and younger adults' interactions with friends and strangers in an iterated prisoner's dilemma. [europepmc]
• Strategic Information Processing from Behavioural Data in Iterated Games. [europepmc]
• Dynamic aspiration based on Win-Stay-Lose-Learn rule in spatial prisoner's dilemma game. [europepmc]
• Predicting human decision making in psychological tasks with recurrent neural networks. [europepmc]
• Prisoner's Dilemma Game with Cooperation-Defection Dominance Strategies on Correlational Multilayer Networks. [europepmc]
• Assessing strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making and risk in a livestock production chain through experimental simulation platforms. [europepmc]
• Explaining workers' inactivity in social colonies from first principles. [europepmc]
• Age-dependent changes in intuitive and deliberative cooperation. [europepmc]
• Path of intuitive compassion to transform conflicts into enduring peace and prosperity: Symmetry across domains of reiterated prisoner's dilemma, dyadic active inference, and Mahayana Buddhism. [europepmc]
• Technological prospects of Belt and Road Initiative in Bangladesh. [europepmc]
• Small bots, big impact: solving the conundrum of cooperation in optional Prisoner's Dilemma game through simple strategies. [europepmc]
• Social dilemma in foraging behavior and evolution of cooperation by learning. [europepmc]
• Intranasal Oxytocin and Pain Reduction: Testing a Social Cognitive Mediation Model. [europepmc]
• Recognising and evaluating the effectiveness of extortion in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. [europepmc]
• Clarifying social norms which have robustness against reputation costs and defector invasion in indirect reciprocity. [europepmc]
• Analysing public goods games using reinforcement learning: effect of increasing group size on cooperation. [europepmc]
• A neurocognitive mechanism for increased cooperation during group formation. [europepmc]
• Properties of winning Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma strategies. [europepmc]
• Tolerant integrated reciprocity sustains cooperation in a noisy environment. [europepmc]
• Undiscounted costs and socially discounted benefits modulate cooperation in one-shot and iterated prisoner's dilemma games. [europepmc]
• Co-evolution of alpha-helical transmembrane protein residues: large-scale variant profiling and complete mutational landscape of 2277 known PDB entries representing 504 unique human protein sequences. [europepmc]
• Decision-Making in Repeated Games: Insights from Active Inference. [europepmc]

Related

• A Predictive Strategy for the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma
• Time and the Prisoner's Dilemma
• Putting the prisoner's dilemma in context
• Properties of Winning Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Strategies
• The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma: Good Strategies and Their Dynamics