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The rise of cooperation in correlated matching prisoners dilemma: An experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Chun-Lei Yang ,
Ching-Syang Jack Yue  and
I-Tang Yu
Chun-Lei Yang*
Affiliation:
Research Center for Humanity and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Rd. Sec. 2, Taipei 115, Taiwan, ROC
Ching-Syang Jack Yue
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, National Chengchi University, 64 Chi-Nan Rd. Sec. 2, Taipei 11623, Taiwan, ROC
I-Tang Yu
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC
*
e-mail: cly@gate.sinica.edu.tw
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Abstract

Recently, there has been a Renaissance for multi-level selection models to explain the persistence of unselfish behavior in social dilemmas, in which assortative/correlated matching plays an important role. In the current study of a multi-round prisoners’ dilemma experiment, we introduce two correlated matching procedures that match subjects with similar action histories together. We discover significant treatment effects, compared to the control procedure of random matching. Particularly with the weighted history matching procedure we find bifurcations regarding group outcomes. Some groups converge to the all-defection equilibrium even more pronouncedly than the control groups do, while other groups generate much higher rate of cooperation, which is also associated with higher relative reward for a typical cooperative action. All in all, the data show that cooperation does have a much better chance to persist in a correlated/assortative-matching environment, as predicted in the literature.

Keywords

Prisoners’ dilemmaCooperationExperimentUnselfish behaviorEvolutionAssortative matchingCorrelated matchingMulti-level selection

JEL classification

D74: Conflict • Conflict Resolution • Alliances • Revolutions C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior B52: Historical • Institutional • Evolutionary

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 3 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9139-8.

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