For this first blog assignment, I chose to focus on the tit-for-tat strategy (TFT). The information in the link above uses TFT to examine the example of a brother and sister deciding individually whether to loaf or work hard on the chores their mother has given them so that they are free to play. TFT combines compensation and reciprocity; player A basically sees what player B does and follows suit, matching their moves.
TFT encourages cooperation and discourages exploitation. "If Ingrid uses a tit-for-tat strategy in our example above, she will work hard the first week. If she then discovers that Edward has loafed, she will loaf the next week. If, after he realizes that he cannot exploit her, he becomes ready to cooperate, a tit-for-tat strategy is ready to begin cooperating." (Robert Schenk, Tit-for-Tat) One very interesting thing to me about this particular example is that it doesn't really offer the opportunity for the competition found in many TFT studies. There is no benefit here for the siblings to be competitive since they have the same end goal: finishing their work so they can play. By requiring both children to work equally, their mother is encouraging cooperation, or a "virtuous cycle."
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