Perception of a Simulated other Player and Behavior in the Reiterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

1979 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Mack ◽  
Joseph G. Williams ◽  
John M. D. Kremer
Author(s):  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Raoul Bell ◽  
Axel Buchner

Abstract. The present study serves to test how positive and negative appearance-based expectations affect cooperation and punishment. Participants played a prisoner’s dilemma game with partners who either cooperated or defected. Then they were given a costly punishment option: They could spend money to decrease the payoffs of their partners. Aggregated over trials, participants spent more money for punishing the defection of likable-looking and smiling partners compared to punishing the defection of unlikable-looking and nonsmiling partners, but only because participants were more likely to cooperate with likable-looking and smiling partners, which provided the participants with more opportunities for moralistic punishment. When expressed as a conditional probability, moralistic punishment did not differ as a function of the partners’ facial likability. Smiling had no effect on the probability of moralistic punishment, but punishment was milder for smiling in comparison to nonsmiling partners.


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