Purpose
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The Prisoners' Dilemma was designed to assess how individuals respond to situations where their outcome and the outcome of another are jointly determined and, furthermore, self-interest and equality are opposed.
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Questions
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The PD has 1 decision point for each player. However, it may also be played as a series of successive rounds. Pairs may remain the same across rounds or change each round. For a given round, the identity of pairs may or may not be revealed; in other words, players may or may not know with whom they are playing.
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Sub-scales
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N/A
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Domain
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Psychometrics
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Sample items
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The most common variant of the PD has 2 participants. Each participant has the choice between defecting and cooperating. The outcomes can be positive or negative.
- If both participants cooperate, they receive the maximum joint outcome.
- If one participant cooperates and the other defects, the defector receives more than the cooperator.
- If both participants defect, they receive the minimum joint outcome.
A sample pay-off matrix is below. In the matrix below, there is one Nash equilibrium -- both players defect.
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