It is standard in experimental economics to use decontextualized designs where payoff structures are presented using neutral language. Here we show that cooperation in such a neutrally framed Prisoner’s Dilemma is equivalent to a PD framed as contributing to a cooperative endeavour....

It is standard in experimental economics to use decontextualized designs where payoff structures are presented using neutral language. Here we show that cooperation in such a neutrally framed Prisoner’s Dilemma is equivalent to a PD framed as contributing to a cooperative endeavor. Conversely,...

Many previous experiments document that behavior in multi-person settings responds to the name of the game and the labeling of strategies. Usually these studies cannot tell whether frames affect preferences or beliefs. In this Dictator game study, we investigate whether social framing effects...

We experimentally investigate the nature of cooperation in various repeated games, with subjects from Romania and USA. We find stark cross-country differences in the propensity to sustain multilateral cooperation through bilateral rewards and punishments. U.S. groups perform well because...

We study the experimental play of the repeated prisoner's dilemma when intended actions are implemented with noise. In treatments where cooperation is an equilibrium, subjects cooperate substantially more than in treatments without cooperative equilibria. In all settings there was considerable...

We explore the extent to which altruism, as measured by giving in a dictator game (DG), accounts for play in a noisy version of the repeated prisoner's dilemma. We find that DG giving is correlated with cooperation in the repeated game when no cooperative equilibria exist, but not when...

Trust is a central component of social and economic interactions among humans. While rational self-interest dictates that “investors” should not be trusting and “trustees” should not be trustworthy in one-shot anonymous interactions, behavioral experiments with the “trust game” have...

Recent evidence suggests that individual variation in risk taking is partly due to genetic factors. We explore how self-reported risk taking in different domains correlates with variation in the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4). Past studies conflict on the influence of DRD4 in relation to risk...

We had participants play two sets of repeated Prisoner's Dilemma (RPD) games, one with a large continuation probability and the other with a small continuation probability, as well as Dictator Games (DGs) before and after the RPDs. We find that, regardless of which is RPD set is played first,...