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Social Preferences in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game: An Evolutionary Analysis

Anders Poulsen, Odile Poulsen

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Abstract

The conventional assumption in economics, that individuals have ’materialistic’ preferences, has been questioned by experimental evidence. In this paper we allow players to have various kinds of ’social ’ preferences and explore, in an evolutionary model, how well these players perform in the one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma. We show that if players have enough information about other players’ preferences, then reciprocity always survives, whereas this is not true for materialism. Altruism survives too, and this is actually harmful for cooperation. We analyze both the simultaneous, sequential and a ’mixed ’ Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Keywords: One-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma game; simultaneous/sequential moves; social preferences; indirect evolutionary approach; reciprocity; altruism; materialism; evolutionary stability. JEL Classification: B41; C72; D74; Z13. 1

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What this paper is about

The conventional assumption in economics, that individuals have ’materialistic’ preferences, has been questioned by experimental evidence. In this paper we allow players to have various kinds of ’social ’ preferences and explore, in an evolutionary model, how well these players perform in the one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma. We show that if players have enough information about other players’ preferences, then reciprocity always survives, whereas this is not true for materialism. Altruism survives too, and this is actually harmful for cooperation. We analyze both the simultaneous, sequential and a ’mixed ’ Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Keywords: One-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma game; simultaneous/sequential moves; social preferences; indirect evolutionary approach; reciprocity; altruism; materialism; evolutionary stability. JEL Classification: B41; C72; D74; Z13. 1

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Available abstract

The conventional assumption in economics, that individuals have ’materialistic’ preferences, has been questioned by experimental evidence. In this paper we allow players to have various kinds of ’social ’ preferences and explore, in an evolutionary model, how well these players perform in the one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma. We show that if players have enough information about other players’ preferences, then reciprocity always survives, whereas this is not true for materialism. Altruism survives too, and this is actually harmful for cooperation. We analyze both the simultaneous, sequential and a ’mixed ’ Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Keywords: One-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma game; simultaneous/sequential moves; social preferences; indirect evolutionary approach; reciprocity; altruism; materialism; evolutionary stability. JEL Classification: B41; C72; D74; Z13. 1

Key concepts: Superrationality, Prisoner's dilemma, Strong reciprocity, Altruism (biology), Dilemma, Reciprocity (cultural anthropology), Social dilemma, Materialism

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