10.5061/DRYAD.7FQ25S8
Grujic, Jelena
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Lenaerts, Tom
Université Libre de Bruxelles
Data from: Do people imitate when making decisions? - evidence from a
spatial prisoners dilemma experiment
Dryad
dataset
2019
Imitation
Spatial Prisoner's Dilemma
Game Theory Experiments
Research Fundation Flanders - FWO*
Research Fundation Flanders - FWO
2020-07-27T00:00:00Z
2020-07-27T00:00:00Z
en
4500707 bytes
2
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
How do people decide which action to take? This question is best answered
using Game Theory, which has proposed a series of decision mechanisms that
people potentially use. In network simulations, wherein games are repeated
and payoff differences can be observed, those mechanisms rely often on
imitation of successful behavior. Surprisingly, little to no evidence has
been provided about whether, how and what people actually use to alter
their actions in that context. By comparing two experimental treatments
wherein participants play in a network the iterated Prisoner's
Dilemma game, we aim to answer whether more successful actions are
imitated. Whereas in the first treatment, participants have the
possibility to use payoff differences in making their decision, the second
treatment hinders such imitation as no information about the gains is
provided. If imitation of the more successful plays a role then there
should be a difference in how players switch from cooperation to defection
between both treatments. Although, cooperation and payoff levels appear
not to be significantly different between both treatments, detailed
analysis shows that there are behavioral differences: When confronted with
a more successful co-player, the focal player will imitate that behavior
as the switching is related to the experienced payoff inequality.
Iterated Multiplayer Prisoner's Dilemma experiment on a square
latticeDataSet.csv