Influence of Working Memory, Strategy, Experience, and Emotionality on a Prisoner’s Dilemma Task

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of working memory, strategy availability, experience, and emotionality on a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Participants consisted of 126 undergraduates from Appalachian State University’s psychology research pool. A 3 (High Working Memory, Middle Working Memory, Low Working Memory) x 2 (Strategy, No Strategy) x Trial Blocks design was employed. Students’ working memory spans were assessed using an automatic operational working memory span task. Participants in the strategy condition were given information about the typical outcomes of Prisoner’s Dilemma games. There was an unexpected finding: competition was positively correlated with overall winnings. Some of the main hypotheses were that: (a) players would become more competitive over time, (b) players in the strategy manipulation would be more cooperative than those in the control condition, (c) high working memory participants would be more competitive than those with middle and low working memory, and (d) working memory would buffer against the effects of emotionality in the game. It was found that players became more competitive as the game progressed. Participants in the strategy condition were more cooperative than those in the control condition. These new findings were examined in relation to reciprocity literature.