“It is not all that easy either … the process is often boring, cold and long.” (Chronicle, February 05, 2003).  This is how a K-ville resident described the Duke ritual known as “tenting”. Although tenting is well known for its harshness, at the beginning of every basketball season, hundreds of Duke students still swarm from their cozy rooms to the tents outside the Cameron Stadium, to get the best seats in the stadium where they can enjoy watching the game to the fullest extent. In each tent, eight students must join together and agree to share the burden of tenting in a fair way: they are all supposed to commit equal time out in the cold. However, not every K-ville citizen is cooperative and fair. Some tenters may “betray” their fellow members – they arrive late or do not even show up for their shifts. Other members have to take their responsibilities and stay for prolonged time in the tent until the “irresponsible” members take their shifts. However, this kind of “irresponsibility” is not prevalent now; cooperation among members still dominates in K-ville. An article by David W. Stephens may explain why cooperation, instead of “defection”, is promoted in situations similar to tenting. 

In his article, “Cumulative Benefit Games: Achieving Cooperation when Players Discount the future”, Stephens investigates a situation that behavior ecologists call the “Cumulative Benefit Game”. He explores this game in depth by simulating a game situation in a mathematical computer model. In the model, a number of players participate in a sequence of games. In each turn, each player has to choose to cooperate or to “defect.” Cooperation gives all players a same benefit; defection gives one individual a larger benefit by taking advantages of other players who are choosing cooperation. Defection benefits one individual; however, if all participants choose defection, no players get any benefit and all lose much more than through cooperation. Hence, benefit of each individual is dependent on all players’ decisions in each turn. But the players do not receive the benefit after each turn. Instead, benefit is accumulated throughout the game and is collected only after the whole sequence of games.

After simulations, the statistics from the result shows how cooperation is promoted. One main determinant of cooperation is the accumulation of benefit. Because of the accumulated benefit, cooperative actions benefit players more than defections do, and players would cling to choose cooperation. But the research also indicates that cooperation is not a must in the cumulative benefit games. A continuous long-term cooperation requires members to cooperate well at the beginning of the game because it is difficult to return to mutual cooperation after a perturbation.

            How does this apply to the tenting situation at Duke? Similar to Stephen’s model, in tenting, people have to make decisions whether to cooperate or to defect. During the whole tenting period, tenters have to make their decisions every day before they go for their shifts. Some of them may turn up for their shifts punctually, while some may arrive late to escape from the harsh force of nature. One choosing defection can successfully take advantages of others if one’s members are willing to take the shifts for that “defector.” But if the tenters are not so cooperative, they would not like to suffer from the freezing weather more than they have to. Hence, nobody would be in the tent and all of them have to pay the cost of missing the tent checks – failing to get the best seats at the stadium. Moreover, in tenting, the pay-off is delayed. Nobody get their basketball game tickets until they successfully pass all the tent checks. This delayed pay-off, as Stephens suggests, promotes cooperation. Besides the delayed pay-off, a cooperation which lasts for the whole game also depends on the cooperation at the beginning. In tenting, the initial cooperation can be achieved without much difficulty since members of a tent are usually good friends. Tenters would not easily defect because it may damage the team spirit and lead to quarrels and revenge and further defection such as tent members leaving their shifts early. Hence, tenters would usually prefer cooperation.

            In conclusion, Stephens’ research not only suggests how cooperation is promoted but also indicates the importance of the delayed pay-off and the initial cooperation. Applying the model of cumulative benefit game, we may figure out why cooperation, which is hindered by the freezing weather, still prevails in K-ville and hence find out better ways of cooperation in tenting.

Reference:

David W. Stephens. (2000). Cumulative Benefit Games: Achieving Cooperation when Players Discount the Future. Journal of theoretical Biology. 205, 1-16. Academic Press.