While I agree to an extent with the motion of this thread, and that The Prisoner's Dilemma is a thing, you can sometimes get exceptions in specialised and interesting scenarios where somebody or a group of people have a deep understanding of human motivation and social skills and use it for co-operation instead of for profit at the expense of another person or people
Check this out:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8
This is an excerpt of a British TV show called Golden Balls. I've never actually watched this show but it looks like this is an event or part of the show that takes place towards the end, or at the very end: two contestants are each given a pair of balls, one which says Split and the other which says Steal. They cannot show each other the balls they have, but they can talk to each other and work out some kind of a solution or compromise
Basically the situation they are in is one where: if they both choose the Split ball, they split the prize money with each other. If one of them chooses Split and the other chooses Steal, the one who chose Split gets nothing and the one who chose Steal takes it all. If they both choose the Steal ball, they both get nothing
Now what I have seen on YouTube of this "split or steal" part of the show is usually the case that both contestants, regardless of gender, will say to each other "I am going to choose Split". Then, it turns out that one of them chooses Split and the other, who was lying when they said they would choose Split, chooses Steal and takes it all. Or, they both choose Steal and neither of them get anything. How, then, do we get two people to co-operate and choose Split?
In this video, the white dude tells the brown dude "I want you trust me 100%, I'm going to pick the Steal ball", and that he wants the brown dude to choose Split, so he can split the money with him after the show. The brown dude is confused and says, "Why don't we just both pick Split?", but the white dude is insistent that he is going to pick Steal. Then, when the balls are revealed, it turns out that they both picked Split - they both get a share of the prize money
What I think happened here was that the white dude used reverse psychology, he already knew that he wanted to split the prize money but also wanted to ensure that the brown dude would pick Split instead of Steal. If one or both of them had said that they would Split, there is a likely chance that one or both of them would have chosen Steal instead, and either received all of the prize money or none of it. So what the white dude did was say "I'm going to Steal", but also threw in the idea that he would split the money with the brown dude after the show. I suspect that the white dude would be satisfied as long as at least one of them got something
Though, to be honest, there are many other factors and I am aware of only a few of them. For example, what if you were more interested in making the other person suffer a harsh penalty out of spite than the actual reward, whether that's money or a shorter prison sentence? If you didn't like the other person, or they had wronged you, you could choose Steal or the non-co-operative option to make sure that they aren't getting anything good out of the situation that you're not getting. Though it could be awkward if that person chose Split or the co-operative option........ It makes me wonder how this Split or Steal would have gone differently if one of the dudes didn't like the other dude or they just didn't like each other
If I was in this situation I am not sure what I would do especially if I did not pick up on any important social cues from the other person. I suppose what I am trying to say is that despite males being competitive for a reward, sometimes other males are willing to co-operate for a shared reward, but also they might be more interested in spiting you for real or imagined wrong-doing than the reward itself, even if neither of you end up getting the reward. I don't know if that's just as bad as being competitive or worse
P.S. I found the video in a Reddit post many years ago during my Redditor days. I suppose it used to be good for something