Elicitation of Cooperation by Retaliatory and Nonretaliatory Strategies in a Mixed-Motive Game

In: The journal of conflict resolution: journal of the Peace Science Society (International), Band 17, Heft 1, S. 162-174

Abstract

The relative effectiveness of pacifistic and retaliatory strategies in eliciting cooperating in a mixed-motive game is unclear due to confounded manipulations of these strategies and inadequate experimental designs in earlier research. In an attempt at clarification, subjects in the present studies were exposed to opponents programmed with one of three strategies: nonretaliatory (pacifist), low retaliatory, or high retaliatory. A multivariate analysis of repeated measures in experiment 1 revealed an effect of strategies and an interaction of strategies by trial blocks. The low retaliatory strategy elicited the most cooperative behavior, the high retaliatory next, and the nonretaliatory least, these differences increasing over trials.