The Prisoner's Dilemma
Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher · 1950
"Two rational actors who cannot communicate or trust each other will often choose mutual betrayal even when mutual cooperation would leave both better off."
Two RAND researchers stumbled into game theory's most famous parable in 1950, later christened the prisoner's dilemma — showing rational self-interest can trap two people in a worse outcome than cooperation.
The setup: two suspects held separately are each offered a lighter sentence for betraying the other, but both get a light sentence if neither confesses. Betraying is rational regardless of what the other does — free if they stay silent, safer if they also betray. So both rationally betray, worse off than if they'd cooperated. Flood and Dresher found the pattern at RAND in 1950; Tucker gave it the prison framing for a psychology audience.
Why does betrayal remain the individually rational choice in the prisoner's dilemma, even though mutual cooperation produces a better combined outcome?
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The explanation above is written with AI assistance. These are the originals — go to them to check it.
- Prisoner's DilemmaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Nash Equilibrium
"In any strategic game, a stable outcome exists where no player can improve their result by changing strategy alone — everyone is already playing their best response to everyone else."