Subject Characteristics and Play of Repeated Games: Further Experiments

Last registered on April 22, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Subject Characteristics and Play of Repeated Games: Further Experiments
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015844
Initial registration date
April 18, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 22, 2025, 12:15 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region
CA

Primary Investigator

Name
John Duffy
Affiliation
University of California, Irvine
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Ed Hopkins
PI Affiliation
King's College London
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PI Name
Tatiana Kornienko
PI Affiliation
King's College London
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2025-04-17
End date
2025-09-01
Keywords
Behavior
Additional Keywords
Rational inattention, cognitive measures, social preferences, repeated games.
JEL code(s)
C72, C91, D83
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
This is a followup study to a previously registered study, AEARCTR-0006318, Subject Characteristics and Play of Repeated Games

We study play in a series of indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games that vary in the probability that the game continues from one period to the next. Subjects play against a known, programmed grim trigger strategy, so that it is possible that they decide how to play each indefinitely repeated game based on expected earnings from their action choices.

In these further sessions, we change the probability of continuation less frequently, only after four plays of an indefinitely repeated game under the same continuation probability to give participants more experience with a given continuation probability.

We also elicit priors as to how frequently across the various games they face that they will choose the cooperative or defect option in the first round of each new repeated game. We are particularly interested in whether these measures correlate with play in the repeated game.

At the end of the study we now collect an incentivized measure of subjects' risk aversion. As in our earlier study we collect measures of subjects’ risk, time and social preferences as measures of their cognitive abilities and their demographic information
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Duffy, John, Ed Hopkins and Tatiana Kornienko. 2025. "Subject Characteristics and Play of Repeated Games: Further Experiments." AEA RCT Registry. April 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15844-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We study how subjects play a series of indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games that vary in the probability that the game continues from one period to the next. Subjects play against a known, programmed grim trigger strategy, so that it is possible that they decide how to play each indefinitely repeated game based on expected earnings from their action choices. We elciit beliefs as to how frequently across the various games they will face that they will choose the cooperative or defect option in the first round of each new repeated game. We also collect measures of subjects’ risk, time and social preferences and their cognitive abiliities. We are particularly interested in whether these measures correlate with play in the repeated game.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2025-04-18
Intervention End Date
2025-08-22

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our outcome variables are beliefs about how often the subject thinks it is a good idea to begin play of and indefinitely repeated game by choosing to cooperate,actions choices in all periods of all repeated games played, the results of an incentivized risk measure, survey responses to questions about risk, time and social preferences, answers to cognitive questions and demographic questions.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We vary the continuation probability across a sequence of repeated games. The continuation probability changes after every four repeated games. The continuation probability and the strategy of the robot grim player are always known to subjects when making their decisions. Treatments involve (1) different values for the continuation probabilities as well as (2) different orderings of the continuation probabilities within a session, in a between subjects desgin. We have two different treatments for the set of continuation values and two different orderings of each set of continuation values, four treatments in total.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Players will be randomly assigned to treatments
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1 per treatment
Sample size: planned number of observations
120 minimum
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Minimum 30 subjects per treatment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UC Irvine
IRB Approval Date
2022-05-25
IRB Approval Number
HS # 2011-8378
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials