Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large
We examine cooperative behavior when large sums of money are at stake, using data from the TV game show “Golden Balls”. At the end of each episode, contestants play a variant on the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma for large and widely ranging stakes averaging over $20,000. Cooperation is surprisingly hig...
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| Format: | Article |
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Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
2011
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30844/ |
| _version_ | 1848794074372374528 |
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| author | van den Assem, Martijn J. van Dolder, Dennie Thaler, Richard H. |
| author_facet | van den Assem, Martijn J. van Dolder, Dennie Thaler, Richard H. |
| author_sort | van den Assem, Martijn J. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | We examine cooperative behavior when large sums of money are at stake, using data from the TV game show “Golden Balls”. At the end of each episode, contestants play a variant on the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma for large and widely ranging stakes averaging over $20,000. Cooperation is surprisingly high for amounts that would normally be considered consequential but look tiny in their current context, what we call a “big peanuts” phenomenon. Utilizing the prior interaction among contestants, we find evidence that people have reciprocal preferences. Surprisingly, there is little support for conditional cooperation in our sample. That is, players do not seem to be more likely to cooperate if their opponent might be expected to cooperate. Further, we replicate earlier findings that males are less cooperative than females, but this gender effect reverses for older contestants because men become increasingly cooperative as their age increases. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:10:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-30844 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:10:25Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| publisher | Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-308442020-05-04T16:31:30Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30844/ Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large van den Assem, Martijn J. van Dolder, Dennie Thaler, Richard H. We examine cooperative behavior when large sums of money are at stake, using data from the TV game show “Golden Balls”. At the end of each episode, contestants play a variant on the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma for large and widely ranging stakes averaging over $20,000. Cooperation is surprisingly high for amounts that would normally be considered consequential but look tiny in their current context, what we call a “big peanuts” phenomenon. Utilizing the prior interaction among contestants, we find evidence that people have reciprocal preferences. Surprisingly, there is little support for conditional cooperation in our sample. That is, players do not seem to be more likely to cooperate if their opponent might be expected to cooperate. Further, we replicate earlier findings that males are less cooperative than females, but this gender effect reverses for older contestants because men become increasingly cooperative as their age increases. Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences 2011-10-07 Article PeerReviewed van den Assem, Martijn J., van Dolder, Dennie and Thaler, Richard H. (2011) Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large. Management Science, 58 (1). pp. 2-20. ISSN 1526-5501 natural experiment game show prisoner's dilemma cooperation cooperative behaviour social behaviour social preferences reciprocity reciprocal behaviour context effects anchoring http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1413 doi:10.1287/mnsc.1110.1413 doi:10.1287/mnsc.1110.1413 |
| spellingShingle | natural experiment game show prisoner's dilemma cooperation cooperative behaviour social behaviour social preferences reciprocity reciprocal behaviour context effects anchoring van den Assem, Martijn J. van Dolder, Dennie Thaler, Richard H. Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large |
| title | Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large |
| title_full | Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large |
| title_fullStr | Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large |
| title_full_unstemmed | Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large |
| title_short | Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large |
| title_sort | split or steal? cooperative behavior when the stakes are large |
| topic | natural experiment game show prisoner's dilemma cooperation cooperative behaviour social behaviour social preferences reciprocity reciprocal behaviour context effects anchoring |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30844/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30844/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30844/ |