Abstract
Competitive environments in which individuals compete for mutually-exclusive outcomes require rational decision making in order to maximize gains but often result in poor quality heuristics. Reasons for the greater reliance on lose-shift relative to win-stay behaviour shown in previous studies were explored using the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and by manipulating the value of winning and losing. Decision-making following a loss was characterized as relatively fast and relatively inflexible both in terms of the failure to modulate the magnitude of lose-shift strategy and the lack of significant neural modulation. In contrast, decision-making following a win was characterized as relatively slow and relatively flexible both in terms of a behavioural increase in the magnitude of win-stay strategy and a neural modulation of feedback-related negativity (FRN) and stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) following outcome value modulation. The win-stay/lose-shift heuristic appears not to be a unified mechanism, with the former relying on System 2 processes and the latter relying on System 1 processes. Our ability to play rationally appears more likely when the outcome is positive and when the value of wins are low, highlighting how vulnerable we can be when trying to succeed during competition.
Highlights
There are a number of serious and playful aspects of society in which individuals recursively engage with others for mutually-exclusive outcomes in a non-cooperative fashion[1]: there will be only one job awarded to the pool of applicants, there will be only one winner at poker
The only guaranteed safe way to play RPS is to adopt the mixed equilibrium strategy (c.f., ‘minimax solution’; ref. 8) wherein one plays randomly with respect to the previous event[9] while ensuring that all three responses are played 33% of the time across the entire number of trials[10]. If both players adopt this strategy, this unique Nash equilibrium leads to a zero-sum game[11] where neither player experiences significant gains in the long run, and ensures that neither player can be dominated by their opponent
One common heuristic in RPS is win-stay lose-shift[7,12,13]. Such tendencies have their roots in behaviourism (c.f., ref. 14) where responses associated with reinforcement are more likely to be repeated and responses that are associated with punishment are more likely to be changed
Summary
There are a number of serious and playful aspects of society in which individuals recursively engage with others for mutually-exclusive outcomes in a non-cooperative fashion[1]: there will be only one job awarded to the pool of applicants, there will be only one winner at poker. In a previous paper[7] we showed that deviations from rational (minimax) decision making in RPS were more likely following negative (e.g., lose and draw) rather than positive (e.g., win) trials The assigned value of a win (+2) equated the subjective value of a loss (e.g., ≈−1 * 2) If it is the subjective magnitude of the outcome rather than valence that drives an individual towards irrational decision making, we would expect an increase in the observation of win-stay strategizing relative to baseline performance in this condition. In this condition losses have approximately four times the value as wins (e.g., ≈−2 * 2 for loss versus +1 for win) so we would expect an exacerbation in lose-shift strategizing relative to baseline performance
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