The prisoner's dilemma: how would you act in this situation?

Before the make a decision that, apart from having repercussions for our own well-being can affect others, we can find ourselves faced with a social dilemma in which the benefits of the decision and the own and other costs of the herself.

Although at first it may seem that our own interest will always prevail, this is not the case, because in that case we would find ourselves in a state of social chaos.

The Prisoner's Dilemma

The so-called "prisoner's dilemma" has been widely used in psychology studies where a situation of conflict of interest between two people is shown. The participants were presented with a fictitious situation in which they should imagine that he is a thief who has been arrested, along with his partner, by the police. Both are questioned by a separate lawyer, who proposes the following dilemma:

• If they both remain silent, that is, cooperate, they will only have to pay a small fine.

• If the two thieves betray each other, that is, they betray each other, both will go to jail for two years.

• If one informs and the other remains silent, the informer will be released but the defendant will go to jail for 5 years.

Obviously, if we expose our partner, we will be released and it would be the most appropriate option for our own well-being. If we both betray each other we would end up in jail. So the best option would be to cooperate, where we would both obtain the same benefit and the same cost, but there is the dilemma: can we trust that our partner does not tell us? So how do we behave?

Possible reactions to this dilemma

Well, several experimental laboratory and field studies have shown that we have four options:

• Be individualistic, that is, we seek to maximize our personal benefit, regardless of how this can influence others (for better or for worse).

• Choose altruism, the opposite pole to the above, where we will only care about the benefit of others.

• Show us competitive trying to be better than others despite the personal costs of the process.

• Cooperate, so we would seek that our decision was equally beneficial for us and for others.

Competitiveness and cooperation, the most used options

In other games of dilemmas, more than one opportunity is offered to choose, in these cases the subjects They usually start by cooperating with each other and, in the next option, they will do the same as their co-worker. That is, they are faithful to the saying “today for you, tomorrow for me”. As well, the conclusions of the studies reveal that the options most used by the majority are competitiveness and cooperation, existing differences between genders (being they more cooperative than they) and cultural (living in an individualistic or collective society).

However, other important factors must be taken into account, such as the context in which it occurs. the dilemma, being something very important the type of relationship that unites us with other people involved. It is not the same that these are complete strangers or that they have some bond of affection with us.

Recommendations to face the social dilemma

In conclusion, I propose a series of recommendations to face a social dilemma before which we do not know how to act:

• Let's be empathetic and let's focus not only on our own benefit but also on that of others.

• Cooperation improves reputation within our group and, in addition, it can help to forge bonds of affection. Let's think that having good social relationships affects our feeling of personal well-being.

• Communicate. Sometimes it is advisable to try to reach an agreement with the other people involved. Evolution has "gifted" us the faculty of language, let's use it.

• Let's do a personal feedbackThinking about the pros and cons of our actions, we can write them down if necessary and mentally imagine the consequences for others and for ourselves.