COMMUNICATION AND GUILT IN A PRISONER’S DILEMMA
By Topi Miettinen, Sigrid Suetens
Abstract
In this paper we measure experienced guilt in a prisoner’s dilemma
experiment with pre-play communication. We find that feelings of
guilt only arise in the case of unilateral defection and that they are
stronger when players have mutually agreed to cooperate. We also
find that fining unilateral defection reduces feelings of guilt.
Keywords: cooperation, guilt, experiments, prisoner’s dilemma, pre-
play communication