Unprompted Changes in Indefinitely Repeated PD Games
Speaker: Prof David Cooper
Affiliation: University of Iowa
Location: Room 215, Chamberlain Building (#35), St Lucia Campus
Abstract: We study why freely interacting teams make unprompted changes in infinitely repeated prisoners’ dilemma (IRPD) games with either perfect or imperfect monitoring. “Unprompted change” takes place when a team switches actions independently, rather than in response to a change in their opponent’s choice or an error in their own signal. Unprompted changes are common, cannot be entirely attributed to trembles, and have persistent effects. We develop LLM-based techniques for analyzing the content of messages between teams and apply these techniques to understand teams’ rationales for unprompted changes. The most common motivation for unprompted changes to cooperation is leading by example. The most common reasons teams make unprompted changes to defection are risk avoidance and short-term profit taking. We show that rationales displaying strategic sophistication predominate as teams gain experience and are good predictors of future cooperation.
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