TY - JOUR
T1 - Friend or foe? Cooperation and learning in high-stakes games
AU - Oberholzer-Gee, Felix
AU - Waldfogel, Joel
AU - White, Matthew W.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2010/2
Y1 - 2010/2
N2 - Why do people frequently cooperate in defiance of their immediate incentives? One explanation is that individuals are conditionally cooperative. As an explanation of behavior in one-shot settings, such preferences require individuals to be able to discern their opponents' preferences. Using data from a television game show, we provide evidence about how individuals implement conditionally cooperative preferences. We show that contestants forgo large sums of money to be cooperative; they cooperate at heightened levels when their opponents are predictably cooperative; and they fare worse when their observable characteristics predict less cooperation because opponents avoid cooperating with them.
AB - Why do people frequently cooperate in defiance of their immediate incentives? One explanation is that individuals are conditionally cooperative. As an explanation of behavior in one-shot settings, such preferences require individuals to be able to discern their opponents' preferences. Using data from a television game show, we provide evidence about how individuals implement conditionally cooperative preferences. We show that contestants forgo large sums of money to be cooperative; they cooperate at heightened levels when their opponents are predictably cooperative; and they fare worse when their observable characteristics predict less cooperation because opponents avoid cooperating with them.
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U2 - 10.1162/rest.2009.10174
DO - 10.1162/rest.2009.10174
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77955164264
SN - 0034-6535
VL - 92
SP - 179
EP - 187
JO - Review of Economics and Statistics
JF - Review of Economics and Statistics
IS - 1
ER -