Gender Differences in Prisoners' Dilemma

Pablo Brañas-Garza and Antonio Morales ()

No E2003/19, Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces from Centro de Estudios Andaluces

Abstract: Charles Darwin (1874) stated that "women are less selfish but men are more competitive". Very recent papers (Eckel & Grossman, 1998, 2001 or Andreoni & Vesterlund 2001, among others) have shown the relevance of gender in altruism in both ultimatum and dictator games. In this paper we analyse the role of gender in one-shot Prisoners' Dilemma. We use payments cards to reveal players' values of the game, what gives information about players' beliefs on rival's cooperativeness. Surprisingly 15% of population choose the cooperative action although the gender effect is quite ambiguous in actions. Within those players who choose the cooperative action, females do so believing her rival will defect.

Keywords: Prisoners' Dilemma; cooperation; payment cards; expected utility theory; beliefs; gender differences. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cea:doctra:e2003_19

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