Team reasoning-Experimental evidence on cooperation from centipede games

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Economics
• Game Theory
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Laboratory studies on the centipede game reveal unexpectedly high cooperation levels.
• Team reasoning, or thinking as a team, is proposed as an explanation for this cooperation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if inducing team reasoning increases cooperation in the centipede game.
• To test the effect of salient joint goals on cooperative behavior.

Main Methods:

• A baseline experiment using a standard centipede game.
• Two treatments designed to make joint goals salient: a probabilistic centipede game and a soccer team frame.
• A second experiment conducted in a naturalistic setting (a beer garden during the 2014 FIFA World Cup).

Main Results:

• Both treatments significantly increased cooperation compared to the baseline.
• Similar findings were observed in the real-world beer garden experiment, demonstrating the robustness of the effect.

Conclusions:

• Making a joint goal salient effectively induces team reasoning and enhances cooperation.
• This research provides insights into how shared objectives can foster cooperative behavior in various contexts.