Social Learning and Coordination Conventions in Intergenerational Games: An Experimental Study

We investigate the creation and evolution of conventions of behavior in “intergenerational games” or games in which a sequence of nonoverlapping “generations” of players play a stage game for a finite number of periods and are then replaced by other agents who continue the game in their role for an identical length of time. Players in generation t can offer advice to their successors in generation \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape $$t+1.$$ \end{document} What we find is that word‐of‐mouth social learning (in the form of advice from laboratory “parents” to laboratory “children”) can be a strong force in the creation of social conventions.

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