Varying Patterns of Reward Cooperation

Abstract

This Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) study explored the "boredom" hypothesis which explains the usual finding of high competition as the outcome of subjects' attempts to alleviate their boredom by trying to outscore one another. Forty male dyads played a 15-trial PD game in which boredom was manipulated by varying both the pattern of rewards sequentially over trials as well as by reward size, real money versus points. As expected, subjects' ratings of boredom were lowest with variable rewards and when playing for money. Cooperation was affected by variable rewards only in the points condition where boredom was highest. However, the same factors which reduced boredom significantly increased interdyad variability. The relationship between this latter finding and the validity of replicated PD games with constant rewards is discussed.

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