TY - JOUR

T1 - Reasons for cooperating in repeated interactions: Social value orientations, fuzzy traces, reciprocity, and activity bias.

AU - Pulford, B.D.

AU - Colman, A.M.

AU - Lawrence, Catherine

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Many human interactions involve patterns of turn-taking cooperation that can be modeled by the deeply paradoxical Centipede game. A backward induction argument suggests that cooperation is irrational in such interactions, but experiments have demonstrated that players cooperate frequently and earn better payoffs as a consequence. We formulate 6 competing theories of cooperation in Centipede games and report the results of 2 experiments, based on investigations of several closely matched games with different payoff structures and different methods of reaching decisions. The results show that turn-taking cooperation does not appear to be explained by reciprocity theory, activity bias theory, or a motive to maximize relative payoffs, but that collective rationality, in the form of a motive to maximize joint payoffs, and fuzzy-trace theory can explain cooperation in interactions of this type. Reciprocity increases cooperation across repeated games between fixed player pairs, but there is no evidence of reciprocity influencing cooperation within games.

AB - Many human interactions involve patterns of turn-taking cooperation that can be modeled by the deeply paradoxical Centipede game. A backward induction argument suggests that cooperation is irrational in such interactions, but experiments have demonstrated that players cooperate frequently and earn better payoffs as a consequence. We formulate 6 competing theories of cooperation in Centipede games and report the results of 2 experiments, based on investigations of several closely matched games with different payoff structures and different methods of reaching decisions. The results show that turn-taking cooperation does not appear to be explained by reciprocity theory, activity bias theory, or a motive to maximize relative payoffs, but that collective rationality, in the form of a motive to maximize joint payoffs, and fuzzy-trace theory can explain cooperation in interactions of this type. Reciprocity increases cooperation across repeated games between fixed player pairs, but there is no evidence of reciprocity influencing cooperation within games.

U2 - 10.1037/dec0000057

DO - 10.1037/dec0000057

M3 - Article

VL - 4

SP - 102

EP - 122

JO - Decision

JF - Decision

SN - 2325-9965

IS - 2

ER -