Imagine you and a friend have robbed the Union Market. You are caught speeding out of the parking lot and are promptly apprehended by Campus Security. A scuffle ensues and you are both charged with resisting arrest. They isolate the two of you so that you may be questioned separately. Your interrogator tells you that your resisting arrest charge carries a jail sentence of 1 year, but if you agree to testify against your partner, they will drop the arrest charge. The robbery charge carries a sentence of 5 years, but you know Campus Security has no evidence because they wouldn’t offer you such a deal otherwise. If you squeal and
your partner keeps quiet, you won’t be implicated in the robbery or charged with resisting arrest, and will thus
get no jail time at all. However, this all depends on the assumption that your partner cooperates with you. If
you and your partner both defect, you will both be convicted of the robbery charge.
Draw a payoff matrix that depicts the four possible scenarios (in terms of jail time in years) given the above
parameters.
Normalize your matrix, such that there are no negative values in your chart.
Note that the terms “cooperate” and “defect”should refer to your behaviour toward your partner, not the authorities.
1 answer
This is not a biology question