PSY 2203-5 - The Prisoner's Dilemma is an essential concept

Social Psychology in game theory that's used to demonstrate the difficulties

“Chapter 13: Conflict and Peacemaking”
Conflict
- A perceived incompatibility of actions or goals
- Intergroup (Us vs Them)
- Interpersonal (Me vs Us)
- Intrapersonal (Me vs Me)
that can develop when two people have to make a
decision between two options and the results of their
decisions depend on both of their decisions. It aids in our
comprehension of the value of trust and collaboration in
interpersonal interactions as well as the advantages and
disadvantages of competition.

Peace
A condition marked by low levels of hostility and
aggression and by mutually beneficial relationships.

If we can manage conflict through mutual

understanding, we can not only resolve disputes but make
peace. Genuine peace is the outcome of a creatively
managed conflict, when the parties reconcile their
perceived differences and reach genuine accord.

WHAT CREATES CONFLICT?

SOCIAL DILEMMA
Many problems that threaten our future — nuclear
arms, climate change, overpopulation, low stocks of
ocean fish — arise as various parties pursue their
self-interests, often (ironically) to their collective
detriment. One individual may think, “It would cost me a
lot to buy an electric car. Besides, the greenhouse gasses I
personally generate are trivial.” Many others reason
similarly, and the result is a warming climate, melting ice
cover, rising seas, and more extreme weather — collective
disasters.
- If Prisoner A confesses and Prisoner B doesn’t,
the DA will grant immunity to A and will use A’s
confession to convict B of a maximum offense (and vice
versa if B confesses and A doesn’t).
- If both confess, each will receive a moderate
sentence.
- If neither prisoner confesses, each will be
convicted of a lesser crime and receive a light sentence.

SOCIAL TRAP

- A situation when conflicting parties are caught in

mutually destructive behaviors

- Prisoner’s dilemma and the tragedy of the

commons

THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA

- This originated from a story of two suspects
questioned separately by the district attorney (DA). The
DA knows they are both guilty but has only enough
evidence to convict them of a lesser offense.
- University students have considered variations of
the prisoner’s dilemma in lab experiments, with the
choices being to defect (choosing not to cooperate) or to
cooperate, and the outcomes being chips, money, or grade
points instead of criminal sentences.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
- The “commons” is any shared resource,
including air, water, energy sources, and food supplies.
The tragedy occurs when individuals consume more than
their share, with the cost of their doing so dispersed
among all, causing the ultimate collapse — the
tragedy — of the commons.
- Environmental pollution is the sum of many
minor pollutions, each of which benefits the individual
polluters much more than they could benefit themselves
(and the environment) if they stopped polluting. We litter
public places — dorm lounges, parks, zoos — while
keeping our personal spaces clean. We deplete our natural
resources because the immediate personal benefits of, for
instance, taking a long, hot shower outweigh the
seemingly inconsequential costs. Whalers knew others
would exploit the whales if they didn’t and that taking a
few whales would hardly diminish the species. Therein
lies the tragedy. Everybody’s business (conservation)
becomes nobody’s business.
THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
- Both games tempt people to explain their own
behavior as due to external forces (“I had to protect
myself against exploitation by my opponent”) and to
explain their partners’ behavior as due to internal forces
(“she was greedy,” “he was untrustworthy”). Most never
realize that their counterparts are viewing them with the
same fundamental attribution error
EVOLVING MOTIVES
- motives often change
- At first, people are eager to make some easy
money, then to minimize their losses, and finally to save
face and avoid defeat
- Conflict can even become its own motive, as
people can find purpose in conflict, as both soldiers and
civilians sometimes do in times of war.
OUTCOMES NEED NOT SUM TO ZERO
- Non-zero-sum games
- Games in which outcomes need not sum to zero.
With cooperation, both can win; with competition, both
can lose (also called mixed-motive situations).
- The two sides’ profits and losses need not add up
to zero. Both can win; both can lose. Each game pits the
immediate interests of individuals against the well-being
of the group. Each is a diabolical social trap that shows
how, even when each individual behaves rationally, harm
can result.
RESOLVING SOCIAL DILEMMAS
REGULATION
● We develop rules and regulations to safeguard
our common good
● However, regulation has costs: costs of
administering and enforcing the regulations, costs of
diminished personal freedom.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
● In order to resolve the social dilemma, Make the
group small. In a small commons, each person feels more
responsible and effective (Kerr, 1989). As a group grows
larger, people become more likely to think, “I couldn’t
have made a difference anyway” — a common excuse for
noncooperation
COMMUNICATION
● To resolve a social dilemma, people must
communicate. In the laboratory as in real life, group
communication sometimes degenerates into threats and
name calling
● Discussing the dilemma forges a group identity,
which enhances concern for everyone’s welfare. It devises
group norms and expectations and pressures members to
follow them. It enables them to commit themselves to
cooperation
● Without communication, those who expect
others not to cooperate will usually refuse to cooperate
themselves
CHANGING THE PAYOFFS
● In the laboratory, cooperation rises when
experimenters change the payoff matrix to reward
cooperation and punish exploitation
● Changing payoffs also helps resolve actual
dilemmas.
APPEALING TO ALTRUISTIC NORMS
- Altruism
- Helping others without expecting anything in
return is the definition of altruism. Putting others before
yourself entails making sacrifices of your own time,
effort, or resources.
- Most people do adhere to norms of social
responsibility, reciprocity, equity, and keeping one’s
commitments. However, the problem is how to tap such
feelings.
- One way is through the influence of a
charismatic leader who inspires others to cooperate
- Another way to increase altruism is by defining
situations in ways that invoke cooperative norms.
- Communication can also activate altruistic
norms.

COMPETITION
GOLDEN RULE
When interests clash, conflicts may erupt. An
example was when hostilities often arise when groups
“Whoever has the gold makes the rules”
compete for scarce jobs, housing and resources. For us to
examine, this competition effect’s, the experiment of
According to Mikula (1984), those with social
Muzafer Sherif (1996) and his colleagues can be ardently
authority typically persuade themselves and others that
seen on this phase.
they deserve what they are getting.

Muzafer’s experiment randomly divided the people

IMPLICATION OF EQUITY THEORY
into two groups. These both groups will compete for a
scarce resource, then you will know what will happen.
The more competent and worthy people feel, the
This experiment has been done with the help of the
more they will feel under benefited and thus eager to get
participants ages eleven and twelve years of age. Upon
even. People who, perhaps after acquiring education, feel
doing this experiment, it was inspired by Sherif's
they deserve more than they are receiving usually lead
witnessing during his teenage years, the Greek troops
intense social protest.
invading the Turkish province in 1919.
MISPERCEPTION
In Sherif’s study, the conflict began with each side
calling the other names during the competitive activities.
Many conflicts contain a core of truly incompatible
Definitely, a win-lose competition. This competition
goals surrounded by a larger exterior of misconception.
produced intense conflict, negative images of the
out-group and strong in-group cohesiveness and pride.
SEEDS OF PERCEPTION

Group polarization also exacerbated the conflict.
According to Wildschut et al., 2003, 2007, groups behave
more competitively than other individuals. All this
occurred without any cultural, physical, or economic
differences between the two groups, and with boys who
were their communities’ “cream of the crop.” Sherif noted
that, had we visited the camp at that point, we would have
concluded these “were wicked, disturbed, and vicious
bunches of youngsters” (1966, p. 85). The evil behavior
influenced or triggered an evil situation.
PERCEIVED INJUSTICE
Self-Serving Bias: encourage people and groups to take
ownership of their good deeds and shirk responsibility for
their bad deeds.
Self-Justify: encourages people to downplay the severity
of their immoral behavior.
Fundamental Attribution Error: each side sees the
other’s anger as reflecting an evil personality.
Preconceptions: one then filters the information and
interprets it to fit one’s preconceptions.

According to Linus Pauling (1962), “Do unto others
20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to
correct for subjective error.” Comments can typify
conflicts bred by perceived injustice. An example was,
“we deserve better?” or even “that's unfair”.
According to some social-psychological theorists,
people perceive justice as equity—the distribution of
rewards in proportion to individuals’ contributions
(Walster et al., 1978). If you and “Jamie” have a
relationship (employer-employee, teacher-student,
husband-wife, colleague-colleague), it is equitable if:
Groups do polarize these self-serving, self-justifying, and
biasing tendencies.
Groupthink: the tendency to see one's own group as
moral and powerful, while the opponent is evil and weak,
is one sign of groupthink.
In-group Bias: a mere fact of being in a group triggers an
in-group bias.
Stereotypes: negative stereotypes once formed are often
resistant to contradictory evidence.

So it should not surprise us, though it should sober
us, to discover that people in conflict form distorted
images of one another. Although one side to a conflict
may indeed be acting with greater moral virtue, the point
is that enemy images are predictable. Even the types of
misperception are intriguingly predictable.
MIRROR - IMAGE PERCEPTIONS
Misperceptions of those in conflict are mutual.
People in conflict attribute similar virtues to themselves
and vices to the other.
Mirror-image perceptions occur when two sides have
clashing perceptions, and at least one is misperceiving the
other. And when such misperceptions exist, noted
Bronfenbrenner, “It is a psychological phenomenon
without parallel in the gravity of its consequences for it is
characteristic of such images that they are
self-confirming.”
According to Kennedy & Pronin (2008), If A expects
B to be hostile, A may treat B in such a way that B fulfills
A’s expectations. Negative mirror-image perceptions have
been an obstacle to peace in many places:
● Both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict insisted
that “we” are motivated by our need to protect our
security and our territory, whereas “they” want to
obliterate us and gobble up our land. “We” are the
indigenous people here, “they” are the invaders. “We” are
the victims; “they” are the aggressors” (Bar-Tal, 2004,
2013; Heradstveit, 1979; Kelman, 2007). Given such
intense mistrust, negotiation is difficult.
● People, regardless of their intelligence, also
display a “myside bias.” In one experiment, American
students were much more likely to favor banning an
accident-prone German car from American roads than a
comparably accident-prone American car from German
roads (Stanovich et al., 2013). Even torture seems more
morally justified when “we” rather than “they” do it
(Tarrant et al., 2012).
SHIFTING PERCEPTION
If misperceptions accompany conflict, then they
should appear and disappear as conflicts wax and wane.
The same process that creates the enemy's image can be
reversible when that enemy becomes an ally.
The extent of misperceptions during conflict provides
a chilling reminder that people need not be insane or
abnormally malicious to form distorted images of their
antagonists. When we experience conflict with another
nation, another group, or simply a roommate or a parent,
we readily misperceive our own motives as good and the
other’s as evil. And just as readily, our antagonists form a
mirror-image perception of us.
So, with antagonists trapped in a social dilemma,
competing for scarce resources, or perceiving injustice,
the conflict continues until something enables both parties
to peel away their misperceptions and work at reconciling
their actual differences. Good advice, then, is this: When
in conflict, do not assume that the other fails to share your
values and morality. Rather, compare perceptions,
assuming that the other perceives the situation differently.
HOW CAN PEACE BE ACHIEVED?
CONTACT
Might putting people into close contact reduce their
hostilities? There are good reasons to think so. Yet,
despite some encouraging early studies of desegregation,
other studies show that in schools mere desegregation has
little effect upon racial attitudes, like the one study by
social psychologist Walter Stephan (1986). According to
him, sometimes desegregation has led to increased
prejudice (especially by Whites toward Blacks) and
sometimes to decreased prejudice (especially by Blacks
towards Whites). But on balance the effects are minimal
for both Black and White students. In most schools,
interracial contact is seldom prolonged or intimate. When
it is structured to convey equal status, hostilities often
lessen.
Here equal-status contact means the contact made on
equal basis. Just as a relationship between people of
unequal status breeds attitudes consistent with their
relationship, so do relationships between those of equal
status. Thus, to reduce prejudice, interracial contact
should be between persons equal in status.
COOPERATION
Although equal-status contact can help, it is
sometimes not enough. Contacts are especially beneficial
when people work together to overcome a common threat
or to achieve a superordinate goal. A superordinate goal is
a shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort; a goal
that overrides people’s differences from one another.
 In his boys’ camp experiments, Sherif used the
unifying effect of a common enemy to create cohesive
groups. Then he used the unifying power of cooperative
effort to settle the conflicting groups. Taking their cue
from experiments on cooperative contact, several research
teams have replaced competitive classroom learning
situations with opportunities for cooperative learning.
Their heartening results suggest how to constructively
implement desegregation and strengthen our confidence
that cooperative activities can benefit human relations at
all levels.
Extending these findings, Samuel Gaertner with his
fellows (1990, 1991) reports that working cooperatively
has especially favorable effects under conditions that lead
people to define a new, inclusive group that dissolves
their former subgroups. If, for example, the members of
two groups sit alternately around a table, (rather than on
opposite sides), give their new group a single name, and
then work together, their old feelings of bias against the
former outsiders will diminish. “Us” and “them” become
“we”.
COMMUNICATION
Conflicting parties can also seek to resolve their
differences by bargaining either directly with one another
or they can ask a third-party to mediate by making
suggestions and facilitating their negotiations. Or they can
arbitrate by submitting their disagreement to someone
who will study the issues and impose a settlement.
When a pie of fixed size is to be divided, adopting a
tough negotiating stance tends to gain one a larger piece
(for example, a better price). When the pie can vary in
size, as in the dilemma situations, toughness more often
backfires.
Third-party mediators also help resolve conflicts by
facilitating constructive communication. Their first task is
to help the parties rethink the conflict and to gain
information about the other party’s interests. By prodding
them to set aside their conflicting demands and opening
offers and to think instead about underlying needs,
interests and goals, the mediator aims to replace a
competitive “win-lose” orientation with a cooperative
“win-win” orientation that aims at a mutually beneficial
resolution. Mediators can also structure communications
that will peel away misperceptions and increase mutual
understanding and trust.
CONCILIATION
Sometimes tension and suspicion run so high that
communication becomes all but impossible. Each party
may threaten, coerce or retaliate against the other.
Unfortunately, such acts tend to be reciprocated, thus
escalating the conflict. In such times, small conciliatory
gestures by one party may elicit reciprocal conciliatory
acts by the other party. Thus tension may be reduced to a
level where communication can occur. One such
conciliatory strategy, GRIT (graduated and reciprocated
initiatives in tension reduction), aims to alleviate tense
international situations.
Those who mediate tense labor-management and
international conflicts sometimes use one other
peacemaking strategy. They instruct the participants in the
dynamics of conflict and peacemaking. The hope is that
understanding – understanding how conflicts are fed by
social traps, perceived injustice, competition and
misperceptions and understanding how conflicts can be
resolved through equal-status contact, cooperation,
communication and conciliation – can help us establish
and enjoy peaceful, rewarding relationships.
Summary:
- In conclusion, we can reduce detrimental
trapping in social dilemmas by developing norms that
require altruistic behavior, by maintaining small groups,
by facilitating communication, by modifying payoffs to
make cooperation more rewarding, and by relying on
these standards.