'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
1–10 of 117 posts
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#2Incredible that only 48% of people got out of their car to shovel the snow... how can you feel good about yourself, sitting in your car, watching somebody else clear a path for you, and not helping?
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#3The benefits of cooperation can't be modeled so simplistically, since the concepts of both long-term reputation and long-term retribution need to be taken into account.
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#4These experiments are nonsense.
Firstly, from the article: “In principle, natural selection predicts individuals to behave selfishly” is a faulty premise. Obviously humans who cooperate to raise children to sexual maturity will have more descendants.
Secondly, in these simulated games it seems likely to me the participants would be, at least to some extent, randomly selecting cooperate / defect because a potential monetary reward for participation isn't the same as "cooperate or everyone freezes to death in their car tonight", or whatever real-world consequences might apply where you don't get "12 iterations".
The way I see is: while our worldview is "everything is a competition" that is how we will interpret what we see. Evolution and economics being the most strident examples. Anything that doesn't automatically fit the worldview needs explaining by science, which is code for "publish or perish". If we had a different worldview I'm sure we would shoehorn everything to fit.
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#5I don't want to be gratuitously negative here. So let's start with the fact that it's great to have a model of cooperation as something out there to be improved upon, or refuted, or defaulted to in the absence of obviously better models.
However, if the idea is that a model is good at "explaining" cooperation by setting up a hypothetical where people choose it a lot, then I guess the "best" model would make people choose cooperate all the time.
So you can set up the points for cooperation to be infinity and the points for all non-cooperation to negative infinity. And you can wrap it all up in a hypothetical story about what the choices mean. Now you have a perfect model where people choose cooperate 100% of the time. But I don't feel like I'm any closer to understanding how cooperation evolved in humans.
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#6Incredible that only 48% of people got out of their car to shovel the snow... how can you feel good about yourself, sitting in your car, watching somebody else clear a path for you, and not helping?
48% of people over 12 iterations of a game.
"... which involved 96 participants ... Each pair repeated (“iterated”) both games 12 times, though were initially told the number of repetitions was randomly determined. The researchers created global competition by revealing that the players with the four highest pay-offs would receive monetary awards."
What people say they would do in a simulation might be different to what they would. Maybe they didn't bring a shovel. Maybe there's already 96 people at the snow face and you'd only be getting in the way.
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#7I don't want to be gratuitously negative here. So let's start with the fact that it's great to have a model of cooperation as something out there to be improved upon, or refuted, or defaulted to in the absence of obviously better models. However, if the idea is that a model is good at "explaining" cooperation by setting up a hypothetical where people choose it a lot, then I guess the "best" model would make people ch…
I despise these contrived experiments and think they should be ridiculed.
Cooperation evolved in humans because:
a. Our young are helpless, and take over a decade to reach sexual maturity. Those who cooperate to raise the young have more descendants.
b. Cooperation is a sexual fitness signal because of point a
The end.
Edit: fix a word, thanks.
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#8I don't want to be gratuitously negative here. So let's start with the fact that it's great to have a model of cooperation as something out there to be improved upon, or refuted, or defaulted to in the absence of obviously better models. However, if the idea is that a model is good at "explaining" cooperation by setting up a hypothetical where people choose it a lot, then I guess the "best" model would make people ch…
I despise these contrived experiments and think they should be ridiculed. Cooperation evolved in humans because: a. Our young are helpless, and take over a decade to reach sexual maturity. Those who cooperate to raise the young have more descendants. b. Cooperation is a sexual fitness signal because of point a The end. Edit: fix a word, thanks.
More descendants, too. :-)
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#9Incredible that only 48% of people got out of their car to shovel the snow... how can you feel good about yourself, sitting in your car, watching somebody else clear a path for you, and not helping?
48% of people over 12 iterations of a game . "... which involved 96 participants ... Each pair repeated (“iterated”) both games 12 times, though were initially told the number of repetitions was randomly determined. The researchers created global competition by revealing that the players with the four highest pay-offs would receive monetary awards." What people say they would do in a simulation might be different to…
Exactly. In the real world, this is likely iterated dozens of times every winter, against neighbors you'll see repeatedly.
In a college classroom, where someone tells you you'll get fifty bucks if you score high on a game? If they tell me I get bonus points for stealing their shovel, why wouldn't I choose that option? Nothing is at stake.
Re: 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007)
#10The benefits of cooperation can't be modeled so simplistically, since the concepts of both long-term reputation and long-term retribution need to be taken into account.
The iterated game (which they studied here) accounts for retribution, but not reputation.