DR@W
DR@W
Decision Research at Warwick (DR@W) is an interdisciplinary initiative which focuses on behavioural and experimental research of decision making.
Formed in January 2010, DR@W brings together researchers and students from Economics, Psychology, Statistics, Warwick Mathematics Institute, Warwick Manufacturing Group and Warwick Business School that are interested in current developments in the area of experimental and behavioural research.
The Department of Economics have created and manage a large computer laboratory for use with experiments.
Visit the Decision Research at Warwick website for further details.
DR@W/EBER Seminar: Andis Sofianos (Durham)
How does rationality shape cooperation in strategic settings? We study this question in a laboratory experiment that links individual rationality, measured by consistency with the generalized axiom of revealed preference, to behaviour in an indefinitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma. Participants are grouped by pre-measured rationality before interacting repeatedly. We find that higher rationality substantially increases cooperation and payoffs. This effect operates through a novel mechanism: more rational individuals make fewer implementation errors when executing their intended strategies, thereby sustaining cooperative outcomes. By contrast, higher cognitive ability also promotes cooperation and higher payoffs, but through a distinct channel—reducing strategic errors in responding optimally to others’ actions. Our results provide the first experimental evidence linking rationality to cooperation via decision-making errors, and clarify the distinct roles of rationality and intelligence in shaping strategic behaviour. Together, the findings offer a unified account of how cognitive constraints affect cooperation in repeated games.