Individual and the Group: Sample Quiz

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Answer the first five questions using this payoff matrix (payoffs are for you):

Players:

Other or Others

Strategies:
Nice
Mean

You:

Nice

5
0
9
2

Mean
Goal: Score as many points as possible

1. Cooperative behavior is most likely to occur if this game is played:

only once between two people.
 only once among many people.
 many times between two people.
 many times among many people.

2. If you were playing this game with one other person, and there was to be only one play of the game, the best strategy--the one that is in your self-interest--would be to play:

Nice.
 Mean.
 Nice or Mean randomly.
 Nice if you thought the other person would play Nice, but otherwise play Mean.

3. If you were to play this game with only one other, and there were many rounds of play, Robert Axelrod would advise what strategy?

Always play Nice.
Always play Mean.
 Begin with Mean and imitate whatever the other player does in the previous round.
Begin with Nice and imitate whatever the other player does in the previous round.

4. Suppose you were to play this game against many others, and the others could not distinguish your decisions from the multitude of other decisions. Then if this game were played not once, but many times, your best strategy--the one that is in your self-interest--would be to:

always play Nice.
always play Mean.
 begin with Mean and imitate whatever the majority of others play in the previous round.
begin with Nice and imitate whatever the majority of others play in the previous round.

5. You get the "sucker's" payoff in the game shown above when you play:

Nice and the other plays Mean.
Nice and the other also plays Nice.
 Mean and the other plays Mean.
Mean and the other plays Nice.

6. Where does the assumption of self-interest seem to work best?

In exchange among strangers
In the family
 In small groups that know each other well.
All of the above

7. Economists explain a lot of environmental problems using the logic of the prisoner's dilemma. They usually argue that the way to solve these problems is:

change the payoffs in some way.
inform people of what is at stake.
 appeal to people's sense of ethics and fairness.
 all or any of the above.
none of the above; they see no way to solve these problems.

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Copyright Robert Schenk