PSYC 3100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Evolutionarily Stable Strategy, Vise

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3100
• Professor: Pat Barclay

Document Summary

You and a partner commit a crime and are arrested and imprisoned with no means of communicating. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict either of you on the principal charge. They hope to get you both sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each of you a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to: betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime (defect), or to remain silent (cooperate with the other). If you and him betray each other (both defect), both serve 5 years in prison. If you betray him but he remains silent, you will be set free and he will serve 10 years in prison and vise- versa. If you and him both remain silent (cooperate), each will only serve 1 year in prison. If you knew he would cooperate, you would choose between 1 or 0 years.