The Prisoner's Dilemma Analysis

The Prisoner’s Dilemma certainly gained its reputation for fame in the world of game theory for the paradoxical strategic and moral issues it poses regarding human cooperation. In this game, you and a partner must testify about a crime that you two have committed together, and you each have the option to either cooperate, which would entail staying silent and not giving up your partner, or defecting, which would imply ratting out your partner. There is no way to know what your partner will choose, as you both must testify at the same time, in separate rooms. You face varying amounts of prison time depending on the actions that both you and your partner take: if you defect while your partner cooperates, you receive no time in prison while your …show more content…
If you both defect from each other, you both receive five years in prison; however, if you both cooperate, you receive only one year in prison each. The Prisoner’s Dilemma can be likened, in some ways, to the Stag Hunt Game, in which two players must choose to either hunt a hare or a stag. One player alone can take down a hare, but both players are necessary in order to take down the stag. The stag is worth much more than the hare, but it is the riskier option, because if your partner does not cooperate, you will have a payoff of zero when you could have opted to hunt the hare instead. The problem of cooperation, though evident in both of these games, is better represented in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, as revealed by examination of dominant strategies within the game as well as the outcomes of repeated …show more content…
Mutual cooperation, though it would be the rational choice for both players, is not easily achieved or maintained. In the standard two-person, one-shot game, it appears that the safest option would be to defect, as this would result in either a five-year sentence or no prison at all, while cooperation yields either a one-year sentence or a fifteen-year sentence. Even when playing the game repeatedly, cooperation is improbable in the Prisoner’s Dilemma due to backwards inductive reasoning. The Stag Hunt Game, on the other hand, allows cooperation to be far more stable because when both players cooperate, a Nash equilibrium occurs, so neither player would do better by changing their strategy. Thus, there would be no logic in withdrawing cooperation in the Stag Hunt Game, as this would only serve to harm both players. The Prisoner’s Dilemma proves to provide a much better representation of the problem of cooperation, as evidenced by the issues previously referred to, including repetition, dominance, and backwards