Doctoral Dissertation Research: Strategic Complexity and Cooperation: An Experimental Study

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This award funds research that uses decision-making experiments to investigate the importance of strategic complexity in repeated games. The project will test hypotheses about the possible cognitive costs of strategic complexity and how these costs affect decisions to cooperate in a repeated game in which the efficient outcome requires cooperation but each individual involved may benefit from selfish behavior.Previous literature in game theory indicates that cooperation in repeated games may be limited by the complexity of the strategic environment, as cooperative strategies are generally associated with greater cognitive costs and less certain outcomes than selfish strategies. The experiments funded by this award observe the cooperation rate in a standard indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma and compare it with cooperation in a similar but more complex strategic environment. The design allows an investigation of whether the impact on cooperation depends on the source of complexity in the strategic environment.Broader impacts include contributing to graduate education and the possible interdisciplinary impact of the research, which crosses boundaries between game theory, decision science, and behavioral economics.