In iterated or indefinitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma settings, Axelrod's tournaments demonstrate that tit-for-tat strategies yield higher long-run payoffs than mutual defection.

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Axelrod's tournaments(Game theory; originated with Robert Axelrod's 1980s computer tournaments): Competitive simulations in which strategies for iterated prisoner's dilemma games are submitted and played against one another and themselves to determine which performs best overall.
Iterated or indefinitely repeated(as used in game theory): Playing the same game over and over again with the same person, rather than just once, which changes how people should strategically decide.
Mutual defection(as used in game theory): When both players in a game choose to betray or refuse to cooperate with each other.
Prisoner's Dilemma(Popular discussion context): A scenario in which two players are separated so they cannot communicate, and each must decide whether to confess or refuse, facing incentives that lead to suboptimal collective outcomes.
Tit-for-tat(Discussed as a candidate Nash Equilibrium strategy in repeated Prisoner's Dilemma games.): A strategy in repeated games where a player cooperates on the first move and subsequently mirrors the opponent's previous move.
payoffs(The choice of interpretation convention is a central methodological dispute in game theory and welfare economics): Numerical values assigned to outcomes in game-theoretic models, interpretable either via utility functions over unrestricted domains or via objectively specifiable metrics such as monetary returns

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