Papers by Cristina Bicchieri
Trust among Strangers
Philosophy of Science, Jul 1, 2004
The paper presents a simulation of the dynamics of impersonal trust. It shows how a “trust and re... more The paper presents a simulation of the dynamics of impersonal trust. It shows how a “trust and reciprocate” norm can emerge and stabilize in populations of conditional cooperators. The norm, or behavioral regularity, is not to be identified with a single strategy. It is instead supported by several conditional strategies that vary in the frequency and intensity of sanctions.
Intentionality matters for third-party punishment but not compensation in trust games
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022
We investigate how the intentionality of investors or trustees' actions affects third par... more We investigate how the intentionality of investors or trustees' actions affects third party compensation and punishment interventions after a trust game. Investors and trustees are randomly assigned to conditions where they either make intentional choices or their choices are made by a random machine. Overall, we find that lack of reciprocity is punished more than lack of trust, and third parties exhibit strong preferences for compensation over punishment. We find that only the punishment choice is affected by the intentionality of parties' actions, whereas compensation occurs in all conditions, whether lack of trust or reciprocity has been intentional or unintentional.
Social Proximity and the Evolution of Norm Compliance
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
We study how individuals' compliance with norms of pro-social behavior is influenced by other... more We study how individuals' compliance with norms of pro-social behavior is influenced by other actors' compliance in a novel, dynamic, and non-strategic experimental setting. We are particularly interested in the role that social proximity among peers plays in eroding or upholding norm compliance. Our results suggest that social proximity is crucial. In settings without known proximity, norm compliance erodes swiftly because participants only conform to observed norm violations of their peers while ignoring norm compliance. With known social proximity, participants conform to both types of observed behaviors, thus halting the erosion of norm compliance. Our findings stress the importance of the broader social context for norm compliance and show that, even in the absence of social sanctions, compliance can be sustained in repeated interactions, provided there is group identification, as is the case in many social encounters in natural and online environments.
Game Theory
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016
Game theory aims to understand situations in which decision-makers interact strategically. Chess ... more Game theory aims to understand situations in which decision-makers interact strategically. Chess is an example, as are firms competing for business, politicians competing for votes, animals fighting over prey, bidders competing in auctions, threats and punishments in long-term relationships, and so on. In such situations, the outcome depends on what the parties do jointly. Decision-makers may be people, organizations, animals, or even genes. In this chapter, the authors review fundamental notions of game theory and their application to philosophy of science. In particular, Section 1 looks at games of complete information through normal and extensive form representations, introduce the notion of Nash equilibrium and its refinements. Section 2 touches on epistemic foundations and correlated equilibrium, and Section 3 examines repeated games and their importance for the analysis of altruism and cooperation. Section 4 deals with evolutionary game theory.
Cooperation and Communication: Group Identity or Social Norms?
Teamwork, 2005
A social dilemma is, by definition, a situation in which each group member gets a higher outcome ... more A social dilemma is, by definition, a situation in which each group member gets a higher outcome if she pursues her individual interest, but everyone in the group is better off if all group members further the common interest. Overpopulation, pollution, Medicare, public television, and the depletion of scarce and valuable resources such as energy and fish-rich waters are all examples of situations in which the temptation to defect must be tempered by a concern with the public good. There are several reasons why some individuals might not contribute to the provision of public goods or refrain from wasting common resources. Usually these resources are used by or depend upon very large groups of people for their continued maintenance. It is easy, therefore, for an individual to consider her contribution to a public good or her personal consumption of a common resource as insignificant. Furthermore, in social dilemmas there is a huge difference between the costs and benefits accruing to an individual. Gains go to the individual, but the costs are shared by all. Given the structure of social dilemmas, rational, self-interested individuals are predicted to defect always. Yet almost 50 years of experiments on social dilemmas show cooperation rates ranging from 40 per cent to 60 per cent, and everyday experience shows people making voluntary contributions to public goods, giving to charities, volunteering and refraining from wasting resources.
The Fragility of Fairness: An Experimental Investigation on the Conditional Status of Pro‐Social NORMS1
Philosophical Issues, 2008
Nowadays it has become almost commonsensical to say that behavioral experiments are an important ... more Nowadays it has become almost commonsensical to say that behavioral experiments are an important element in the construction of theories about what motivates people to act in one way or another. Yet not much work has been devoted to evaluate whether behavioral experiments can help in assessing the existence of particular social norms and the conditions under which people will comply with them. The goal of this paper is to present evidence if favor of the importance of behavioral experiments, especially regarding the ...
The Epistemic Foundations of Nash Equilibrium
On the Reliability of Economic Models, 1995
In the last twenty years or so game theorists have devoted much effort to the development of so-c... more In the last twenty years or so game theorists have devoted much effort to the development of so-called refinements of Nash equilibrium. However, too little attention has been paid to the very basic question of how a Nash equilibrium comes about. A Nash equilibrium (Nash, 1951) is a strategy profile in which each player's strategy is a best reply to the others' strategies. The problem is that nothing in the definition of Nash equilibrium entails that players will in fact play their equilibrium strategies. It is quite possible that an equilibrium is ...
Rationality, coordination, and convention
Synthese, 1990
In what contexts can rational agents rely on a favourable outcome in their dealings with others? ... more In what contexts can rational agents rely on a favourable outcome in their dealings with others? In this paper I contest some common assumptions relating to this question. Assuming that each agent is rational in a certain sense, less is possible for them than might be thought. But my discussion is not wholly lacking in comfort for rational agents.
Covenants without Swords
Rationality and Society, 2002
In one-shot social dilemma experiments, cooperation rates dramatically increase if subjects are a... more In one-shot social dilemma experiments, cooperation rates dramatically increase if subjects are allowed to communicate before making a choice. There are two possible explanations for this `communication effect'. One is that communication enhances group identity, the other is that communication elicits social norms. I discuss both views and argue in favor of a norm-based explanation.
Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2010
In this article, we aim to illustrate evolutionary explanations for the emergence of framing effe... more In this article, we aim to illustrate evolutionary explanations for the emergence of framing effects, discussed in detail in Cristina Bicchieri’s The Grammar of Society. We show how framing effects might evolve which coalesce two economically distinct interactions into a single one, leading to apparently irrational behavior in each individual interaction. Here we consider the now well-known example of the ultimatum game, and show how this ‘irrational’ behavior might result from a single norm which governs behavior in multiple games. We also show how framing effects might result in radically different play in strategically identical situations. We consider the Hawk-Dove game (the game of chicken) and also the Nash bargaining game. Here arbitrary tags or signals might result in one party doing better than another.
Norms and Games
Philosophy of Science, 2008
There are three centrally important ways in which norms have been elaborated and explained: in te... more There are three centrally important ways in which norms have been elaborated and explained: in terms of religious or natural law strictures on behavior, in terms of constraints imposed by rationality, and, recently, in terms of agents' behavior in well-defined games. The principal difficulty of a gaming account of norms is to show how the account explains motivations of individuals to follow the norms. This issue is examined in the context of small-number norms and large-number norms.
Fairness and Social Norms
Philosophy of Science, 2008
This essay comments on the theory of social norms developed by Cristina Bicchieri in The Grammar ... more This essay comments on the theory of social norms developed by Cristina Bicchieri in The Grammar of Society (2006). It applauds her theory of norms but argues that it cannot account for the experimental results concerning ultimatum games. A theory of fairness is also needed. It develops a number of specific criticisms of her way of incorporating the influence of norms into preferences.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1999
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2010
What is considered to be fair depends on context‐dependent expectations. Using a modified version... more What is considered to be fair depends on context‐dependent expectations. Using a modified version of the Ultimatum Game, we demonstrate that both fair behavior and perceptions of fairness depend upon beliefs about what one ought to do in a situation—that is, upon normative expectations. We manipulate such expectations by creating informational asymmetries about the offer choices available to the Proposer, and find that behavior varies accordingly. Proposers and Responders show a remarkable degree of agreement in their beliefs about which choices are considered fair. We discuss how these results fit into a theory of social norms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Self-refuting theories of strategic interaction: A paradox of common knowledge
Erkenntnis, 1989
Game theoretic reasoning is sometimes strikingly inconsistent with observed behavior, or even wit... more Game theoretic reasoning is sometimes strikingly inconsistent with observed behavior, or even with evidence from introspection. Famous examples of such inconsistency are the finitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game and Selten's Chain Store Paradox (Selten, 1978). In both cases, some plausible solutions run counter to game theoretic reasoning and appear to point to the inadequacy of the game theoretic notion of rationality in capturing important features of human behavior. These considerations do not apply to artificial settings only: in ...
Norms, Preferences, and Conditional Behavior more
This article addresses several issues raised by Nichols, Gintis, and Skyrms and Zollman in their ... more This article addresses several issues raised by Nichols, Gintis, and Skyrms and Zollman in their comments on my book, The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms. In particular, I explore the relation between social and personal norms, what an adequate game-theoretic representation of norms should be, and what models of norms emergence should tell us about the formation of normative expectations.
Group and dyadic communication in trust games more
We study the behavioral consequences of interpersonal communication prior to experimental Trust g... more We study the behavioral consequences of interpersonal communication prior to experimental Trust games. We manipulated the richness of the communication medium and the size of the communicating group. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments, but the size of the communicating group did: The amounts sent were significantly higher in the dyadic communication conditions than in the group communication and no-communication conditions. We also found that first-movers' expectations of ...
Experiments in Ethics more
1 Experiments in Ethics: Phil 525 Wed. 1 3 pm Cristina Bicchieri 491, Cohen Hall 215 898 5820 cb3... more 1 Experiments in Ethics: Phil 525 Wed. 1 3 pm Cristina Bicchieri 491, Cohen Hall 215 898 5820 cb36@ sas. upenn. edu• COURSE REQUIREMENTS This is a graduate research seminar covering interdisciplinary research in psychology, philosophy, cognitive science and behavioral economics. Our focus will be on identifying and discussing issues of philosophical significance raised by recent work in moral psychology, experimental economics and behavioral decision making. Those enrolled in the course for credit are ...
Local Fairness more
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LIX, No. 1, March 1999 Local Fairness CRISTINA BI... more Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LIX, No. 1, March 1999 Local Fairness CRISTINA BICCHIERI Carnegie Mellon University Social psychologists that study behavior in social dilemmas, as well as experimental game theorists that look at ultimatum and dictator games, report results that are consistently at odds with the predictions of game-theoretic models. Cooperation in one-shot prisoner's dilemmas or punishment in ultimatum games are non-maximizing behaviors, because individuals choose an action that gets ...
Handbook of Trust Research, 2006
Trust is the topic of a considerable amount of recent research in the social sciences. This trend... more Trust is the topic of a considerable amount of recent research in the social sciences. This trend is particularly noteworthy in the economics, organizational and strategy literatures, where trust is considered extremely important for many kinds of interaction. For instance, several economists argue that trust is an essential'lubricant'without which even the simplest forms of economic exchange can not occur (Arrow 1974). 1 Trust increases the efficiency of exchange by reducing the expectation of opportunistic behavior and consequently ...
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Papers by Cristina Bicchieri