Money & society · 2020
Do friends coordinate better than strangers, or does it depend on the game?
It depends on the game. Participants playing with friends coordinated better and earned more than those playing with strangers in a game that could favor cooperation. Those advantages were much smaller or absent in a game that could favor competition. The abstract does not establish whether this pattern extends beyond these games.
Details
The study compared interactions with friends and strangers in two games. Both offered a choice between a potentially higher-paying but uncertain option and a lower-paying, safe alternative. The stag-hunt game had incentives that could favor cooperation, whereas the entry game had incentives that could favor competition.
Compared with strangers, friends chose the uncertain option more often in the stag-hunt game but less often in the entry game. In the stag-hunt game, friends also switched between options less, coordinated better and earned more. These advantages were substantially reduced or lost in the entry game, so friendship did not offer the same coordination benefit under both sets of incentives.
The abstract does not report the sample size, participant characteristics or the size of the differences. It also says the researchers examined risk attitudes, friendship qualities and interpersonal similarities, but gives no results for those analyses. The findings therefore do not establish which personal traits explain the pattern.
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