Description:
A coalition is usually assumed to involve an agreement, explicit or implicit, among several actors (individuals or organizations) to cooperate in pursuit of a common interest. Typically members of a coalition regard such cooperation in their own individual interest only if others continue to cooperate. Thus violation of the agreement holding the coalition together by some members often instigates others to defect, and the process becomes self-reinforcing. The effect is demonstrated in an experiment with a Tragedy of the Commons type game, in which one of the players, a confederate of the experimenter, (the “stooge”) grossly violates apparent expectations of the others. Measures of the amount of cooperation (or noncooperation) before and after the stooge's intervention are related to the presence or absence of preliminary discussion and to the number of players.