I Cannot Cheat on You after We Talk

Cristina Bicchieri and Alessandro Sontuoso

No 1, PPE Working Papers from Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: This is a draft of a chapter in a planned book on the Prisoner’s Dilemma, edited by Martin Peterson, to be published by Cambridge University Press. - Experimental evidence on pre-play communication supports a “focusing function of communication” hypothesis. Relevant communication facilitates cooperative, pro-social behavior because it causes a shift in individuals’ focus towards strategies dictated by some salient social norm. After reviewing the formal foundations for a general theory of conformity to social norms, we provide an original application illustrating how a framework that allows for different conjectures about norms is able to capture the focusing function of communication and to explain experimental results.

Keywords: social norms; social dilemmas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2014-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe, nep-mic and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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