The problem of skill acquisition is ubiquitous and fundamental to life. Most tasks in modern society involve the cooperation with other subjects. Notwithstanding its fundamental importance, teammate selection is commonly overlooked when studying learning. We exploit the virtually infinite repository of human behavior available in Internet to study a relevant topic in anthropological science: how grouping strategies may affect learning. We analyze the impact of team play strategies in skill acquisition using a turn-based game where players can participate individually or in teams. We unveil a subtle but strong effect in skill acquisition based on the way teams are formed and maintained during time. “Faithfulness-boost effect” provides a skill boost during the first games that would only be acquired after thousands of games. The tendency to play games in teams is associated with a long-run skill improvement while playing loyally with the same teammate significantly accelerates short-run skill acquisition.
Database dump of games (1/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xaa
Database dump of games (2/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xab
Database dump of games (3/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xac
Database dump of games (4/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xad
Database dump of games (5/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xae
Database dump of games (6/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xaf
Database dump of games (7/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xag
Database dump of games (8/8)
Postgres database dump. Gziped plain text, separated using "split" command in Linux. To rejoin the parts and recreate the gzip file, issue the following concatenate command at the command line: cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah > gamesdb.gz
xah