Prisoner's Dilemma

Imagine that you and an associate rob a bank and flee the scene. You are both arrested a few hours later and immediately separated.

During the interrogation you and your associate have two options:

1. Tell the truth
2. Tell nothing

These two options lead to four possible outcomes:

1. You both tell the truth
2. You tell the truth and your partner stays silent
3. Your partner tells the truth and you stay silent
4. You both stay silent

These four outcomes each lead to different punishments:

1. If neither of you talk, you both get 2 years in prison.
2. If only your partner talks, you do 10 years
3. If only you talk, you get off scot free
4. If both of you talk you both do 7 years

What do you choose?

Your first instinct would be to talk and hope your partner stays quiet so you don't do any jail time, because who wants to go to prison, but careful now...really think about it. If you do talk, and our partner talk also, you get a pretty long jail term. So you stay quiet, and hope your partner does too, that way you only do 2 years...but if your partner knows you aren't going to talk, do you really think they wouldn't rat you out to get out of doing any jail time?