An Exploration of Cooperation During an Asymmetric Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game

We investigated how the contingent delivery of a cultural consequence on target culturants in an asymmetric iterated prisoner's dilemma game (IPDG) affected players' choices to cooperate. The asymmetric IPDG creates an analogue to environmental conditions in which behaviors and cultural practices create and sustain income disparities among different members of the population more generally. The asymmetric IPDG allows researchers to explore how these inequalities affect cooperation between players experiencing unequal payoffs. Six undergraduate students divided into three dyads participated in an ABABCDCD reversal design. An asymmetric IPDG in conditions A and C ensured that one player received a greater number of points regardless of the second participant's choices, analogous to contingencies that produce income inequalities. In conditions B and D, a metacontingency was arranged such that delivery of a cultural consequence (CC; bonus points equally distributed among the dyad) was contingent on the oscillating production of target aggregate products (APs) across two consecutive cycles. When participants coordinated responding and contacted the target AP -> CC relation, the point disparity was reduced. However, individual contingencies in direct competition for the favored player were arranged to reduce the probability of cooperative responding. Results showed that the CC selected certain oscillations between target APs across dyads resulting in a decrease in the point disparity between the players. This study illustrates how laboratory scientists can arrange experiments that capture some of the complexity of social behavior as it occurs with respect to cultural, political, and economic systems and the associated networks of contingencies.