The Wordsmith's Forge

It's connected to the the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, really, which is a better model because it assumes repeated interactions with the same people. However, it's worth noting that occasionally giving someone the opportunity to cooperate even when their previous behavior has been hurtful to you - "forgiveness" - provides an opportunity to get out of a downwards spiral of mutual competition, punishment, and blame; this strategy, tit-for-tat with (occasional) forgiveness, sometimes surpasses the success of being tough but fair in the iterated prisoner's dilemma game, and sometimes, not, depending on the environment of other strategies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat
--alatefeline