Game Theory and Human Behavior

Abstract

Abstract Game theory has long been used by economists, psychologists, and other social scientists to predict the behavior of people in a variety of situations. More recently, evolutionary biologists have used game theory to predict the behavior of nonhuman species. It is safe to say that evolutionary game theory has transformed the study of animal behavior, although theory has so far outpaced empirical studies. Evolutionary approaches to human behavior are not new, but they have recently gathered momentum and show signs of being accepted by the human sciences. As might be expected, evolutionary predictions about human behavior are often framed in the language of evolutionary game theory. Are these predictions really new, or do they merely restate the predictions of traditional game theory? What can evolutionary game theory say about human nature that its much larger and older parent tradition cannot? In traditional game theory, strategies are assumed to be adopted by rational choice. In evolutionary game theory, strategies are assumed to simply exist in the population and to compete with each other in Darwinian fashion. As a result, the strategies that emerge from evolutionary game theory maximize the relative fitness of individuals in the population. Traditional game theory can make no such claim, because the utilities that are assumed to be maximized by rational choice are not defined.