Prisoners and their dilemma

Menusch Khadjavi, Andreas Lange*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We report insights into the behavior of prisoners in dilemma situations that so famously carry their name. We compare female inmates and students in a simultaneous and a sequential Prisoner's Dilemma. In the simultaneous Prisoner's Dilemma, the cooperation rate among inmates exceeds the rate of cooperating students. Relative to the simultaneous dilemma, cooperation among first-movers in the sequential Prisoner's Dilemma increases for students, but not for inmates. Students and inmates behave identically as second movers. Hence, we find a similar and significant fraction of inmates and students to hold social preferences.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)163-175
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume92
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Inmates
  • Lab experiment
  • Lab-in-the-field experiment
  • Prisoner's Dilemma

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