Cognitive Aspects of Power in a Two-Level Game

The Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemma with Intragroup Power Dynamics (IPD^2) is a new game paradigm for studying human behavior in conflict situations. IPD^2 adds the concept of intragroup power to an intergroup version of the standard Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game. We conducted an exploratory laboratory study in which individual human participants played the game against computer strategies of various complexities. We also developed a cognitive model of human decision making in this game. The model was run in place of the human participant under the same conditions as in the laboratory study. Results from the human study and the model simulations are presented and discussed, emphasizing the value of including intragroup power in game theoretic models of conflict