I posted previously that Freakonomics was hosting a Prisoner’s Dilemma contest. About a week ago they selected the top five answers and had a quick voting contest (comment democracy with 48 hours to decide the winner). Since I am both currently attending one of the EITM summer programs and exercising my current mathematical knowledge by attempting to run a maximum likelihood estimation of a generalized Prisoner’s Dilemma model with a normally distributed cost function to the players for cooperation; it seemed like a good time to return to the post and evaluate the answers provided.
Adding a pre-game to the Prisoner’s Dilemma ought not to change the strategy of either player. In theory, if you are asking your potential opponent/partner a question, you want to select someone who is going to play sub-optimally by either their own ignorance or your ability to convey to them that you are willing to cooperate (but will not anyways). A rational interviewee will see this, and will either defect no matter what to dissuade you from picking them or attempt to coax the main player into cooperation only willing to defect later. When evaluating any question you are asking another person a question in a non-cooperative framework, you must ascribe the same level of rationality that they will have in playing the game. That is, if you believe people to remain rational actors, then talk prior to the game can remain cheap as a single question may not return an honest answer.
After the jump I discuss the five questions and the usefulness of each:
Michael A. Allen is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Boise State University. His research focuses on international conflict, military alliances, and quantitative methods in international relations and comparative politics.