TY - JOUR
T1 - Arbitration supports reciprocity when there are frequent perception errors
AU - Boyd, Robert
AU - Mathew, Sarah
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank M. Hoffman for help with proving that ATFT is subgame perfect. We also thank J. Silk, P. Richerson and J. Henrich for useful comments. This research was funded by the John Templeton Foundation (grant no. 48952). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - Reciprocity is undermined by perception errors, mistakes that cause disagreement between interacting individuals about past behaviour. Strategies such as win–stay–lose–shift and generous tit-for-tat can re-establish cooperation following a perception error, but only when errors arise infrequently. We introduce arbitration tit-for-tat (ATFT), a strategy that uses third-party arbitration to align players’ beliefs about what transpired when they disagree. We show that, when arbitration is moderately accurate, ATFT is a strong subgame-perfect equilibrium and is evolutionarily stable against a range of strategies that defect, cooperate, ignore arbitration or invoke arbitration unnecessarily. ATFT can persist when perception errors are frequent, arbitration is costly or arbitration is biased. The need for third parties to resolve perception errors could explain why reciprocity is rare in other animals despite opportunities for repeated interactions and why human reciprocity is embedded within culturally transmitted moral norms in which community monitoring plays a role.
AB - Reciprocity is undermined by perception errors, mistakes that cause disagreement between interacting individuals about past behaviour. Strategies such as win–stay–lose–shift and generous tit-for-tat can re-establish cooperation following a perception error, but only when errors arise infrequently. We introduce arbitration tit-for-tat (ATFT), a strategy that uses third-party arbitration to align players’ beliefs about what transpired when they disagree. We show that, when arbitration is moderately accurate, ATFT is a strong subgame-perfect equilibrium and is evolutionarily stable against a range of strategies that defect, cooperate, ignore arbitration or invoke arbitration unnecessarily. ATFT can persist when perception errors are frequent, arbitration is costly or arbitration is biased. The need for third parties to resolve perception errors could explain why reciprocity is rare in other animals despite opportunities for repeated interactions and why human reciprocity is embedded within culturally transmitted moral norms in which community monitoring plays a role.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41562-020-01008-1
DO - 10.1038/s41562-020-01008-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 33398142
AN - SCOPUS:85098794857
SN - 2397-3374
VL - 5
SP - 596
EP - 603
JO - Nature Human Behaviour
JF - Nature Human Behaviour
IS - 5
ER -