INDIVIDUAL HEURISTICS AND THE DYNAMICS OF COOPERATION IN LARGE GROUPS

This article describes computer simulations in which pairs of ''individuals'' in large groups played a prisoners' dilemma game. The individual's choice to cooperate or not was determined by 1 of 3 simple heuristics: tit-for-tat; win-stay, lose-change; or win-cooperate, lose-defect. Wins and losses were determined through the comparison of a play's outcome with the average outcome of the individual's neighbors. The results revealed qualitative differences between small and large groups. Furthermore, the prevalence of cooperation in the population depended in predictable ways on the heuristic used, the values of the payoff matrix, and the details of the social comparison process that framed the outcomes as wins or losses

ROLE OF INTERDEPENDENCE STRUCTURE, INDIVIDUAL-VALUE ORIENTATION, AND ANOTHERS STRATEGY IN SOCIAL DECISION-MAKING - A TRANSFORMATIONAL ANALYSIS

The present research examined the influence of the objective interdependence structure of tasks, the values of decision makers, and others' strategies on social decision making and judgment. We observed that subjects' preferences among outcome alternatives that influenced both their own and another's welfare were strongly conditioned by their value orientations and by their expectations concerning the other person's choice behavior. As anticipated, there was no main effect for task structure, but structure interacted with value and with the other's strategy to influence choice behavior. Further, we observed that subjects judged others pursuing a tit-for-tat or a cooperative strategy as fairer and more honest than those pursuing a competitive strategy. They judged others pursuing a tit-for-tat strategy as more intelligent and stronger than those playing cooperatively or competitively