The Black Box as a Control for Payoff-Based Learning in Economic Games.

ABSTRACT: The black box method was developed as an "asocial control" to allow for payoff-based learning while eliminating social responses in repeated public goods games. Players are told they must decide how many virtual coins they want to input into a virtual black box that will provide uncertain returns. However, in truth, they are playing with each other in a repeated social game. By "black boxing" the game's social aspects and payoff structure, the method creates a population of self-interested but ignorant or confused individuals that must learn the game's payoffs. This low-information environment, stripped of social concerns, provides an alternative, empirically derived null hypothesis for testing social behaviours, as opposed to the theoretical predictions of rational self-interested agents

SUBMITTER: Burton-Chellew MN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7614088 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature