Social Influences on Children’s Cooperative Behavior in the Prisoner’s Dilemma

• In Event: 3-210 - Game Theory in the Playground: The Development of Cooperative Problem-Solving in Children

Integrative Statement

Much of human cooperation can be characterized by social dilemmas, situations in which self-interest is at odds with the interests of the group (Dawes, 1980). Among various types of social dilemmas, the Prisoner’s Dilemma game (PDG) has long been used to explore how cooperation among adults might endure when incentives to be selfish are high (Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981). In a one-shot scenario, when two players choose to cooperate, they maximize their combined payoff. Yet, each player has an incentive to defect, because defection yields higher personal rewards regardless of what the partner does. However, cooperation in the dilemma can be promoted in different ways; for example, if the game is repeated (Axelrod, 1984), or if the partners are allowed to communicate (Dawes et al., 1977).
Although the vast majority of work on the PDG has focused on adults, recent work with children has started generating insights into the developmental origins of humans’ solutions to the game. However, we still know relatively little about children’s cooperative behavior in socially valid contexts, ones in which children interact with real partners and where partner identity matters. To this end, the major aim of the current research is to understand how children solve cooperative problems in more socially valid scenarios. Across two pre-registered studies, we investigate the effect of communication and group membership on children’s cooperative decisions in the PDG. In our PDG versions, 6- to 9-year-old participants are presented with an apparatus that consists of two similar but independent trays operating in a seesaw-like fashion to deliver rewards to the participant or to the partner (Figure 1). Participants are given six opportunities to cooperate or not with their partner.
In an ongoing study (Study 1; N = 136, 73 girls, M = 7.35, SD = 1.12), we test whether communication promotes children’s cooperation in the PDG. Children play a version of the PDG in which they can communicate their intended decision prior to making their choice (Communication condition), compared with a version where they are not able to communicate (Silent condition). Preliminary data indicate that children do not seem to cooperate more after they communicate their intended decision (Figure 2a). In another ongoing study (Study 2; N = 72, 42 girls, M = 7.39, SD = 1.09), we examine whether children are more cooperative with ingroup as opposed to outgroup members, using a minimal group paradigm (Dunham et al., 2011; McAuliffe & Dunham, 2017). Children tend to be more generous towards ingroup members and more likely to forgive them for violating fairness norms (McAuliffe & Dunham, 2016), yet we know little about the extent to which partner identity affects their cooperative decisions. Preliminary data indicate that children seem to cooperate slightly more with ingroup than with outgroup partners (Figure 2b). Taken together, this set of studies marks an important step towards understanding how children solve cooperative problems in socially relevant contexts and, by extension, will shed important light on the developmental origins of cooperative decision-making.

Authors

• Laurent Prétôt, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Quinlan Taylor, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine McAuliffe, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author