Corporate Wellness Programs

Variations on the Prisoner's Dilemma game are widespread in financial studies. The idea is that two people are faced with a dilemma: if they both support each other and stay silent they get a short sentence.

Over long periods of time exploiters get found out and people prepared to cooperate win. This leads to the suggestion that self-interest dictates that we should operate as though we're altruistic because this is the most successful strategy. So even if we're altuistic we're actually deceiving schemers. Don't you just love the businessman's view of human nature?

However, if exploiters can sidestep the repeating nature of the game then they can gain an overall advantage. If instead of engaging with the same opponents in repeated games they continually find new adversaries they will, overall, end up ahead. This, of course, is the modus operandi of conmen and scammers everywhere; looking to find fresh victims and forever moving on.