The Prisoner’s Dilemma Case Study
http://www.businessinsider.com/prisoners-dilemma-in-real-life-2013-7
Business Insider published an article entitled “They Finally Tested The ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ On Actual Prisoners – And The Results Were Not What Would Expect”, where they discussed the results of a case study testing the most popular game in game theory. Rather than testing the situation with years of jail added to their sentences, they incentivized prisoners with cigarettes and coffee. 56% of the criminals cooperated, despite incentives indicating that they should defect. They tested a similar situation with students, where they incentivized them with money. Only 37% of students cooperated.
In class we discussed the Prisoner’s Dilemma, determining that a prisoner has the incentive to defect no matter what the other prisoner does. Under this logic there would be a Nash Equilibrium where both prisoners defect. This of course, applies to rational thinker’s who don’t put any value in talking advantage of each other. It seems actual prisoners are more likely to look out for his fellow prisoner and cooperate than to act only in his self interest. In fact, 30% of the time, both prisoners cooperated. It would also seems like students are a more cut-throat group than prisoners based on their low rate of cooperation.