Social Learning and Coordination Conventions in Intergenerational Games: An Experimental Study

We investigate the creation and evolution of conventions of behavior in "intergenerational games" or games in which a sequence of nonoverlapping "generations" of players play a stage game for a finite number of periods and are then replaced by other agents who continue the game in their role for an identical length of time. Players in generation t can offer advice to their successors in generation t + 1. What we find is that word-of-mouth social learning (in the form of advice from laboratory "parents" to laboratory "children") can be a strong force in the creation of social conventions.