The Prisoners' Dilemma

In Dr. Hatfield's class, we played a very interesting game called "The Prisoners' Dilemma Game." Actually, I have heard about this game in my micro-economics class in Vietnam a couple years ago. I found this game not only sound fun but also help me understand more about competition and cooperation between two parties in business world. Generally in this game, we assume that the police arrest two people doubted to commit a crime and put them in two separate rooms. The police offer if either of the two prisoners confesses and the other does not, he will be free and the other one will get the harsh sentence. If both of them keep silence, they both get the lightest sentence and if both confess, it will be worse sentence for both than when they keep silent. The class was divided in 4 groups and each two groups would play the role of one prisoner and compete with the other one. After the game, I learned a lesson - if we kept betraying each other, we would definitely lose. Instead, if we cooperated, we would win and get the extra credits for the next exam. In real life, it is not always easy to obtain Win-Win but that the goal for us to get the best outcomes, especially in business.