Resumen de Cooperation with Strategy-Dependent Uncertainty Attitude
Nicola Dimitri
The paper shows that in a one shot Prisoner�s Dilemma Knightian uncertainty, as formalised by multiple priors, may entail cooperation at a Generalised Nash Equlibrium. The main idea is that players may have an attitude towards uncertainty that depends upon their available strategies. In particular, if players anticipate to be sufficiently more optimistic when choosing to cooperate, than when defecting, then they may indeed cooperate. Though uncommon in economic modelling, choice (action, in general state) -dependent uncertainty attitude formalises a behaviour which could instead be well understood and widely accepted by cognitive psychologists, within the theory of Cognitive Dissonance.
An example may clarify this notion. Suppose a person thinks a job to be particulalry uninteresting (this is her prior). Then, imagine that circumstances are such that she has to take that job. In taking it she would, ex-post, face a �dissonance� with her prior beliefs and this would produce an unpleasant state of internal tension. Such tension may be resolved by cognitive readjustment, namely ex-post changes in beliefs. More explicitly, the person interviewed after having been engaged for some time on that job, may now say that the job is not so bad after all. In the Prisoner�s Dilemma this could offer a possible explanation to justify a strategy-dependent uncertainty attitude.
