Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:22:34.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Cooperators Exit More Readily than Defectors?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John M. Orbell ,
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea  and
Randy T. Simmons
John M. Orbell
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea
Affiliation:
State University of New York College at Cortland
Randy T. Simmons
Affiliation:
Utah State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Standard prisoners' dilemma games offer players the binary choice between cooperating and defecting, but in a related game there is the third possibility of leaving the game altogether. We conceptualize exiting as taking the individual beyond the reach of externalities generated in the original group, and on that basis—together with the assumption of self-interested (dollar-maximizing) behavior on the part of all players—we derive the prediction that the exit option will drain the community or group more of cooperators than of defectors.

But experimental data do not support this prediction; cooperators do not leave more frequently than defectors and, in fact, there is evidence that defectors are more prone to leave than cooperators. We consider and reject the possibility that this failure of prediction results from the (admitted) greater optimism of cooperators about the incidence of cooperation “here,” and present data supporting the hypothesis that cooperators often stay when their personal interest is with exiting because of the same ethical or group-regarding impulse that (presumably) led them to cooperate in the first place. Cooperation can be produced for a group or community either by inducing people to cooperate or by inducing those who are going to cooperate to stay in the game, and ethical considerations seem to underlie the decision to stay as well as the decision to cooperate while staying.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 147 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barry, B.Sociologists, economists and democracy. London: Collier-Macmillan, 1970.Google Scholar
Barry, B., & Hardin, R.Rational man and irrational society? Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982.Google Scholar
Blake, J., & Davis, K.Norms, values and sanctions. In Faris, R. E. L. (Ed.), Handbook of modern sociology. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.Google Scholar
Bonacich, P., Shure, G.H., Kahan, J.P., & Meeker, R. J.Cooperation and group size in the n-person prisoners' dilemma. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1976, 20, 687–705.Google Scholar
Buchanan, J.The limits of liberty: between anarchy and leviathan. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Campbell, D. T.On the conflicts between biological and social evolution and between psychology and moral tradition. American Psychologist, 1975, 30, 1103–1126.Google Scholar
Dawes, R. M.Formal models of dilemmas in social decision-making. In Kaplan, M. F. & Schwartz, S. (Eds.), Human judgment and decision processes. New York: Academic Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Dawes, R. M., MacTavish, J., & Shaklee, H.Behavior, communication and assumptions about other peoples' behavior in a commons dilemma situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977, 1, 1–11.Google Scholar
Dawes, R. M., & Orbell, J. M.Cooperation in social dilemma situations: thinking about it doesn't help. Research in Experimental Economics, 1982, 2, 167–173.Google Scholar
Edney, J.J., & Harper, C.S.The effects of information in a resource management problem: a social trap analogue. Human Ecology, 1978, 6, 387–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin, K.D.Equal access vs. selective access: a critique of public goods theory. Public Choice, 1977, Spring, 53–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, G.The tragedy of the commons. Science, 1968, 162, 1243–1248.Google Scholar
Hardin, G., & Baden, J.Managing the commons. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1977.Google Scholar
Hardin, R.Collective action. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Head, J.G.Public goods and multilevel government. In David, W.L. (Ed.), Public finance, planning and economic development: essays in honor of Ursula Hicks. London: Macmillan, 1973.Google Scholar
Hirschman, A.O.Exit, voice and loyalty: responses to decline in firms, organizations and states. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Jerdee, T.H., & Rosen, B.Effects of opportunity to communicate and visibility of individual decisions on behavior in the common interest. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1974, 59, 712–716.Google Scholar
Loether, J. H., & McTavish, D.G.Descriptive and inferential statistics. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1976.Google Scholar
Marwell, G., & Ames, R.E. Economists free ride, does anyone else? Experiments on the provision of public goods, IV. Paper presented to the Public Choice Association, 1980.Google Scholar
Norusis, M. J.SPSS statistical algorithms. ChicagoSPSS Inc., 1979.Google Scholar
Olson, M.The logic of collective action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Olson, M., & Zeckhauser, R.An economic theory of alliances. Review of Economics and Statistics, 1966, 48, 266–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapoport, A.Prisoners' dilemma, recollections and observations. In Rapoport, A. (Ed.), Game theory as a theory of conflict resolution. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1974, 18–34.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. C.Hockey helmets, concealed weapons and daylight saving: a study of binary choices with externalities. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1973, 17, 381–428.Google Scholar
Tiebout, C. M.A pure theory of local expenditures. Journal of Political Economy, 1956, 64, 416–424.Google Scholar
Ullmann-Margalit, E.The emergence of norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
van de Kragt, A. Varying “n” in prisoners' dilemma games; you can't ever do only one thing. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, 1983.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.