Problems and pseudo-problems in understanding cooperation in social dilemmas

The principal aim of this article is to clarify what is and what is not problematic in understanding co- operation in the dyadic Prisoner’s Dilemma game and in multiplayer social dilemmas. A secondary aim is to provide a brief overview of the most important propos- als for solving the genuine problems. Our commentary on the very interesting target article (Krueger, DiDo- nato, & Freestone, this issue) is embedded in a more general critical review of explanations for cooperation in social dilemmas. We hope to clarify some of the issues that are commonly misunderstood in the wide- ranging literature on cooperation in social dilemmas. [Opening paragraph]