Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas

Abstract Social dilemmas are mixed-motive games. Although the players have a common interest in maintaining cooperation, each may try to obtain a larger payoff by cooperating less than the other. This phenomenon received increased attention after Press and Dyson discovered a class of strategies for...

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Autores principales:	Chiara D’Arcangelo, Luciano Andreozzi, Marco Faillo
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/8284e3c907104989a512c134c0307949
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:8284e3c907104989a512c134c03079492021-12-02T16:45:54ZHuman players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas10.1038/s41598-021-96061-92045-2322https://doaj.org/article/8284e3c907104989a512c134c03079492021-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96061-9https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Social dilemmas are mixed-motive games. Although the players have a common interest in maintaining cooperation, each may try to obtain a larger payoff by cooperating less than the other. This phenomenon received increased attention after Press and Dyson discovered a class of strategies for the repeated prisoner’s dilemma (extortionate strategies) that secure for themselves a payoff that is never smaller, but can be larger, than the opponent’s payoff. We conducted an experiment to test whether humans adopt extortionate strategies when playing a social dilemma. Our results reveal that human subjects do try to extort a larger payoff from their opponents. However, they are only successful when extortionate strategies are part of a Nash equilibrium. In settings where extortionate strategies do not appear in any Nash equilibrium, attempts at extortion only result in a breakdown of cooperation. Our subjects recognized the different incentives implied by the two settings, and they were ready to “extort” the opponent when allowed to do so. This suggests that deviations from mutually cooperative equilibria, which are usually attributed to players’ impatience, coordination problems, or lack of information, can instead be driven by subjects trying to reach more favorable outcomes.Chiara D’ArcangeloLuciano AndreozziMarco FailloNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Chiara D’Arcangelo Luciano Andreozzi Marco Faillo Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas
description	Abstract Social dilemmas are mixed-motive games. Although the players have a common interest in maintaining cooperation, each may try to obtain a larger payoff by cooperating less than the other. This phenomenon received increased attention after Press and Dyson discovered a class of strategies for the repeated prisoner’s dilemma (extortionate strategies) that secure for themselves a payoff that is never smaller, but can be larger, than the opponent’s payoff. We conducted an experiment to test whether humans adopt extortionate strategies when playing a social dilemma. Our results reveal that human subjects do try to extort a larger payoff from their opponents. However, they are only successful when extortionate strategies are part of a Nash equilibrium. In settings where extortionate strategies do not appear in any Nash equilibrium, attempts at extortion only result in a breakdown of cooperation. Our subjects recognized the different incentives implied by the two settings, and they were ready to “extort” the opponent when allowed to do so. This suggests that deviations from mutually cooperative equilibria, which are usually attributed to players’ impatience, coordination problems, or lack of information, can instead be driven by subjects trying to reach more favorable outcomes.
format	article
author	Chiara D’Arcangelo Luciano Andreozzi Marco Faillo
author_facet	Chiara D’Arcangelo Luciano Andreozzi Marco Faillo
author_sort	Chiara D’Arcangelo
title	Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas
title_short	Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas
title_full	Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas
title_fullStr	Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas
title_full_unstemmed	Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas
title_sort	human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/8284e3c907104989a512c134c0307949
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Human players manage to extort more than the mutual cooperation payoff in repeated social dilemmas

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