Social Preferences in the Public Arena: Evidence from a Prisoner's Dilemma Game on a TV Show
34 Pages Posted: 10 Dec 2006
Date Written: April 23, 2007
Abstract
We analyze a large stakes prisoner's dilemma game played on a TV show. Players cooperate 40% of the time, demonstrating that social preferences are important; however, cooperation is significantly below the 50% threshold that is required for inequity aversion to sustain cooperation. Women cooperate significantly more than men, while players who have earned more of the stake cooperate less. A player's promise to cooperate is also a good predictor of his decision. Surprisingly, a player's probability of cooperation is unrelated to the opponent's characteristics or promise. We argue that inequity aversion alone cannot adequately explain these results; reputational concerns in a public setting might be more important.
Keywords: prisoner's dilemma, social preferences, inequity aversion, cheap talk, gender differences
JEL Classification: C72, C93, D64
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
By Glenn W. Harrison and John A. List
-
Neoclassical Theory Versus Prospect Theory: Evidence from the Marketplace
By John A. List
-
Sorting, Prices, and Social Preferences
By Edward P. Lazear, Roberto A. Weber, ...
-
The Origin of the Winner's Curse: A Laboratory Study
By Gary Charness and Dan Levin
-
Experimental Evidence on Alternative Environmental Valuation Methods
-
Friend or Foe? A Natural Experiment of the Prisoner's Dilemma
By John A. List
-
Naturally Occurring Markets and Exogenous Laboratory Experiments: A Case Study of the Winner's Curse
By Glenn W. Harrison and John A. List
-
Risk Attitudes, Randomization to Treatment, and Self-Selection into Experiments
By Glenn W. Harrison, Morten I. Lau, ...