Using Prisoner’s Dilemna To Help Model Cooperation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009630031830554X#keys0001
Networks that are seemingly unrelated may actually change the behavior between members of their respective networks. According to the academic paper, while networks themselves may not share any nodes or ties, they often bleed information to people that belong to other networks, altering their decision making. In order to generalize this idea for an experiment, the researchers needed a payoff matrix and a probability model. The payoff matrix is based on Prisoner’s Dilemma, which the payouts are constant except for the temptation to confess. The temptation to confess changes based on the amount of knowledge one person has over the other. This knowledge gap is known as asymmetric information; members of one network have more information than members of another network. The results of the experiment were that people are more likely to cooperate when information is more asymmetric.
At first I thought this result was counterintuitive, thinking that people with the same information would come to the exact same conclusion and cooperate. However, after conjuring up an example similar to that from lecture, it made sense to me how this could apply in the real world. Assume 100 cars want to get from point A to point B, and there are 2 paths, p1 and p2. p1 takes x/50 +0.1 hours and p2 normally takes 0.1 hours, but because there is a car crash on this road, it takes x/50 +0.1 hours to take p2. Assume that 50 cars have access to a radio station that tells every listener about this crash and the new amount of time it takes to travel along this road. This is a different network creating asymmetric information among the members of the traffic network. Without any information from the radio, everyone would choose to take p2. Assuming everyone who hears about the crash switches paths, the cars along both paths would be equal, and everyone would arrive at point B in 1.1 hours. This is the minimum travel time possible. If everyone had the same information, and everyone or no one decided to switch paths (the case of no asymmetric information), every car would arrive at B in 2.1 hours. There is no cooperation in this case. This is just one possible example where asymmetric information leads to cooperation.