What is the prisoner's dilemma?

After a serious arson case occurred, the police arrested two suspects at the scene. In fact, it was they who set fire to the warehouse together. However, the police did not have enough evidence and had to imprison them in isolation and asked them to confess.

In this situation, both prisoners can make their own choices: either betray his accomplices by cooperating with the police, or remain silent, which is by cooperating with the police. His associates cooperated, not with the police. Both prisoners knew that if they both remained silent they would both be released because the police could not convict them as long as they refused to confess.

But the police also understood this very well, so they decided to give the two prisoners a little stimulation: if they both admitted to arson, each would be sentenced to 3 years in prison; Both will be released for lack of evidence: if one denies and the other confesses and is willing to testify, the one who denies will be jailed for 5 years and fined, while the one who confesses will be treated leniently - released , and you can also get a bonus.

So, what should these two prisoners do? Should we choose to cooperate with each other or betray each other?

On the surface, they should cooperate with each other and remain silent, because then they will both get the best outcome: freedom. But they have to carefully consider what options the other side might take.

Prisoner A is not a fool. He simply cannot believe that his accomplices will not provide evidence against him to the police and then leave prison with a huge reward, leaving him to sit in jail alone. The temptation of this idea is too great. But he also realized that his accomplices were not fools and would assume the same thing about him.

So prisoner A concludes that the only rational choice is to betray his accomplice and tell the police everything, because if his accomplice is stupid enough to just keep silent, then he will be the one who gets out with the prize. The lucky ones. And if his accomplices also confessed to the police based on this logic, then Prisoner A would have to serve trial anyway, at least he would not have to serve the heaviest sentence.

This is the result of a game. The two prisoners acted according to their own logic and both went to jail.

The above story reflects people's game psychology, which is called the "Prisoner's Dilemma" in psychology. It was first proposed in 1950 by Zeng Ke, a mathematician from Princeton University in the United States. He created such a story to explain what game theory is to a group of psychologists at Stanford University in the United States. Later, the "Prisoner's Dilemma" was deduced into many versions and became the most famous case in game theory.

The "Prisoner's Dilemma" tells us that in an interactive game, the best strategy depends directly on the strategy adopted by the other party, especially on how much space this strategy leaves for the development of cooperation between the two parties. room.

In the domestic home appliance war that everyone is very familiar with, although it is not a game between two opponents, among the many opponents, each party has a large market share. The consequences of actions are greatly affected by the actions of the opponent, so the scenario is probably the same.

Therefore, if both parties are aware of this prospect and both parties collude or cooperate to implement relatively high prices, then both parties can obtain higher profits by avoiding price wars. Some people call this kind of cooperation a "win-win game." As a result, both parties will often be the winners of a "win-win game".

Unfortunately, these alliances are often in a profit-driven "prisoner's dilemma". And the win-win situation will come to nothing. Various price alliances are always very short-lived, and this is why.

In the prisoner's dilemma, both parties invariably choose to betray and go to jail. On the one hand, the punishment for cooperating with an accomplice is much higher than the reward, and on the other hand, it is also because the information is opaque. A one-time decision made under certain circumstances, with no further consequences or subsequent games.

For example, on a bus, two strangers will argue over a seat. If they know each other, they may give in to each other. In places with a high flow of people, such as night markets, street stalls, stations and tourist attractions, not only are the quality of goods and services the worst, but also counterfeiting is rampant. Because there is no follow-up game between merchants and customers, customers are unlikely to return because the food is delicious. Come. Since it is a one-time deal, if you don’t make money, you won’t make anything in vain.

It is also driven by this mentality that if you choose to cooperate wishfully, you will be punished. When President Johnson explained to a group of business leaders that a large amount of money was needed to launch a missile race with the former Soviet Union, he once used the following story to illustrate this principle:

In 1861, a Texas man left home to Join the camp of Confederate soldiers. He told his neighbors that he would be back soon and that the war would be effortless: "Because we can beat these Yankees with broomsticks." It would be two years before he returned, missing a leg.

His neighbor asked the miserable-looking, ragged wounded soldier what had happened: "Didn't you say that war is effortless? Can you beat these Yankees with a broomstick?"< /p>

The soldier replied: "Of course we can, but the trouble is that Yankees don't fight with brooms.

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But in most situations in life, there will be some subsequent contact and games between people. So in this case, how should we make decisions?

Obviously, it is not advisable to blindly repay kindness with kindness, because this will only transfer the cost of others' lives to oneself; and it is not advisable to blindly repay kindness with hatred, because this will slowly lose most gaming partners and opportunities.

So, the best decision-making method is what the prisoner's dilemma teaches us: repaying kindness with kindness and repaying resentment with resentment.

In fact, this is also the rationality of most people in daily life. Choice is also a very adaptive rule. It works because other rules anticipate its existence and are designed to work well with it, because to get along well with "reflective decision-making", you must adopt a cooperative attitude. , even those rules that seek to take advantage without being punished will soon change, because any rule that wants to take advantage of "reflective decision-making" will eventually hurt itself

For this decision-making method to work, it must be. The following conditions must be met:

The characteristics are obvious and easy to identify;

Once identified, the other party must understand that they will retaliate against all betrayals and make it difficult for the other party to get rid of them.

The mathematician John von Neumann once said: "In a game with interaction, the best strategy depends directly on the strategy adopted by the other party, especially on the development of this strategy. How much room is left for cooperation between the two parties? ”

In short, reflexive decision-making can win the competition not by attacking the other party, but by eliciting behaviors from the other party that benefit both parties.