Communication in game simulated conflicts: Two experiments

The results of two experiments on communication in game simulated situations are reported. The first experiment investigated cooperative behavior in a Prisoner's Dilemma game with full communication allowed, and found that real rewards produced significantly greater cooperation than did imaginary rewards. A Creative Alternative game was used in the second experiment to examine the effect of communication in a situation in which one of two parties has a strong motivation to get the other person to change his behavior, but the other has little or no reason for doing so. The results suggested that both the opportunity to communicate and the dogmatism of the parties may be related to the ability to achieve a creative solution.