Prisoner’s Dilemma on Actual Prisoners: What Do They Pick?
Prisoner’s Dilemma is a “classic cooperation test” used widely by society in video games, Hollywood movies, economics, and game theory. Even though this theory was originally based on prisoners, it was never officially tested on them until recently.
During the early portion of 2013, a group of economists pulled off this experiment on two groups of individuals—female prisoners and students. There were two parts to this research. First, the students and the prisoners chose letters and earning points that translated into reward afterwards. This is the exciting part usually shown in detective stories—one suspect has no idea what the other one chose. In the second version, the first player knows the choice of the second and vice versa.
From what we learned, the best choice (Nash equilibrium) is for both parties, without knowing what the other one chose, to pick betray. However, the students and prisoners did not behave that way. 55% of the prisoners chose ally (or option A, in this case) while only 37% of students chose A. Economists argued that this could either be because prisoners are not nearly as highly educated (and therefore not know the best option) or have the habit of covering each other’s back.
Students’ rate of picking option A rose to 63% in the second test. After learning what their partner would potentially pick, students are able to put more trust into the others. The majority of the prisoners still picked A. Humans do not always maximize their own profit.
This study shows how people act differently from how they are expected to. The prisoners and students did not pick things that were the safest and, potentially, would maximize their payoff. This is also exactly why it’s called the “Prisoner’s Dilemma”—one has to choose between profit and humanity.
I understood this theory from a game called “Zero’s Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward”. The author used a slightly changed version of Prisoner’s Dilemma to its fullest. In this case, choosing betray while your partner chooses ally would gain you the most amount of points. However, that is not what mostly happens. Here is a short clip on the Prisoner’s Dilemma told by Phi, a character in the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDxPtDaYzEs