The Child’s Dilemma
The Child’s Dilemma
From: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/game-theory-for-parents1/
This article from Scientific American touches on Game Theory as it applies to parenting, whereby “using classic strategies from game theory, kids can learn to establish fair agreements on their own, without any intervention from a parent or other authority figure”. It is every parent’s dream is to have children that can resolve their own conflicts in a rational manner. The primary argument as to how this feat may be attained is founded in psychology and a term that game theorists define as “indirect reciprocity”. The idea behind “reciprocity” is that humans are intrinsically motivated to share with a) close relations, b) people that share with them, c) people that share with others. As such, altruism is able to exist in our society and allows children the possibility of learning the merits of cooperation. As the article suggests, “they might figure out that cooperating this time could win them better treatment from a sibling next time around”.
The reason for learned cooperation among children can be explained by a simple analogy to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. As we learned in class, the dominant strategy and Nash Equilibrium of the Prisoner’s Dilemma result in both prisoners confessing (Table A). Similarly, two siblings may agree not to tattle on each other, resulting in increased cooperation on the basis of repaying kindness or “reciprocity”. If one sibling cooperates, the other may agree to cooperate as well. If the other sibling defects, then so will the sibling that initially tried to cooperate. Operating by this strategy (so called tit for tat) gives each child the incentive to work together (e.g. clean up their room) because doing so will encourage the other to do the same. Thus, children may quickly learn that working together (as long as the work is split fairly) is most beneficial. This behavior can be reinforced by parental rewards (e.g. ice cream) as shown in Table B.
