Beyond collaboration and competition: A case study of moral foundations in The Farmers, a cooperative game with independent goals.

摘要

This dissertation addresses design challenges in the study of player goals found in game theory and education by introducing The Farmers , an asymmetric, three player, non-competitive, non-collaborative, semi-cooperative, common-pool resource dilemma simulation game designed to elicit political debate and in-game moral claims (Fennewald and Kievit-Kylar, 2012, 2013). Human experiments and artificial simulations of The Farmers are used to investigate the differences between how players and simulated agents act when given collaborative, competitive, and semi-cooperative/independent goals, (goals where players have personal goals not directly tied to the success of other players). Moral discussions from the game are analyzed using Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt, 2012) and Kohlberg's Theory of Moral development (Kohlberg, 1973, 1981). Findings suggest differences among the three versions of the game (collaborative, competitive, and independent versions) and evidence that a variety of moral foundations are used by players to explain and justify their actions during game play, especially when players are given independent goals. This is likely at least in part due to the independent goals design of the game, which emphasizes zero-sum success for individual players while at the same time fostering non-zero sum interaction among players. This study presents a methodology for designing simulation games to present goals found in non-competitive, non-cooperative interactions (such as goals found in many ecological and political debates). This study finds that sanctity is one of several moral foundations used to provide justification of anomalous actions in social dilemma game play. The study should be of interest to anyone wishing to design games-based studies of collaboration and negotiation for business, social science, and education that are rich with moral claims.