One thing that always sticks out to me watching The Traitors, and which this article finally clarified for me, is that many players treat it as an iterated game

One thing that always sticks out to me watching The Traitors, and which this article finally clarified for me, is that many players treat it as an iterated game, and it's not. It's so common to hear things like "I'll take one for the team", but that's only ever a good move to make in an iterated game, assuming you're not entirely altruistic. There are "sub games" within this and it can apply there certainly, but that's not the only context where you hear players saying things like this (or often, encouraging others to take one for the team). I think it's that these concepts are memes, embedded in our language and behaviour, but that many people don't think through their application to the situation they're actually in. I see this a lot in life, people doing things or advocating for things that "come next in the sequence", without thinking about their context and whether it makes sense in the moment.