<P> It is implied that the prisoners will have no opportunity to reward or punish their partner other than the prison sentences they get , and that their decision will not affect their reputation in the future . Because betraying a partner offers a greater reward than cooperating with them , all purely rational self - interested prisoners would betray the other , and so the only possible outcome for two purely rational prisoners is for them to betray each other . The interesting part of this result is that pursuing individual reward logically leads both of the prisoners to betray , when they would get a better reward if they both kept silent . In reality , humans display a systemic bias towards cooperative behavior in this and similar games , much more so than predicted by simple models of `` rational '' self - interested action . A model based on a different kind of rationality , where people forecast how the game would be played if they formed coalitions and then maximized their forecasts , has been shown to make better predictions of the rate of cooperation in this and similar games , given only the payoffs of the game . </P>
<P> It is implied that the prisoners will have no opportunity to reward or punish their partner other than the prison sentences they get , and that their decision will not affect their reputation in the future . Because betraying a partner offers a greater reward than cooperating with them , all purely rational self - interested prisoners would betray the other , and so the only possible outcome for two purely rational prisoners is for them to betray each other . The interesting part of this result is that pursuing individual reward logically leads both of the prisoners to betray , when they would get a better reward if they both kept silent . In reality , humans display a systemic bias towards cooperative behavior in this and similar games , much more so than predicted by simple models of `` rational '' self - interested action . A model based on a different kind of rationality , where people forecast how the game would be played if they formed coalitions and then maximized their forecasts , has been shown to make better predictions of the rate of cooperation in this and similar games , given only the payoffs of the game . </P>
the term prisoner 's ' dilemma refers to a game in which
the term prisoner 's ' dilemma refers to a game in which
reward or punish their partner
reward or punish their partner