"Studies conducted in other labs previously concluded that rats didn’t grasp how to succeed in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The authors of the PLoS study noted that

"Studies conducted in other labs previously concluded that rats didn’t grasp how to succeed in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The authors of the PLoS study noted that when experimenters observed low cooperation rates, the animals had been food deprived. Fully satiated rats, on the other hand, freely cooperated and easily solved the Prisoner’s Dilemma. These results show that the primordial drive for food in a hungry animal simply clouds judgement." The same goes for employees by either (1) feeding them or (2) making sure they eat. Either way, I consistently noticed a significant increase in cooperation for tasks at hand when either (1) I fully paid for food--like pizza--to share with the team, or (2) informed everyone I was ordering food and to tell me what they want and collected money. The only difference in behavior observed between the two examples above is when I performed #1, there was always an increase in the number of "what else can I do" or "do you need anything" and more frequent inquiries about the nature of progress which would then lead to the "what else..." and "do you need..."