Opponent's Behavior Research Articles

Analysing of the Relationship between Team Cohesion and Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors of Athletes Taking Groundwork Training in Professional Football Teams

In this study, it was aimed to determine the relationship between team cohesion and prosocial and antisocial behaviors of football player candidates taking groundwork training in the professional football team of Kayserispor. The population of the study consisted of 172 football player candidates getting regular football training for at least 1 year in the Kayserispor football team and were in competition status, and the sample consisted of 104 volunteers. As data collection tools, “Personal Information Form”, “Youth Sport Environment Questionnaire” and “Prosocial and Antisocial Sports Participation Motives” were used. The data obtained in the study were analyzed in computer environment. Number, percentage, mean, standard deviation were used as descriptive statistical methods in the evaluation of the data. Pearson’s correlation was applied between the continuous variables of the study.Among the subtitles of youth athlete team cohesion; among the subtitles of task dimension and pro-social and anti-social behaviors, a moderate positive relationship between pro-social behavior towards teammate and a low level positive relationship between pro-social behavior against the opponent were detected. While a moderate negative relationship was detected between social behavior, there was no relationship between pro-social behavior to the opponent and anti-social behavior to the opponent, one of the subtitles of social dimension and pro-social and anti-social behavior. A low-level negative correlation was found between anti-social behavior towards teammate As a result, in Kayserispor football team, it has been observed that athletes who take groundwork training have a high level of cohesion both in terms of their duties and social aspects, they have positive attitudes and behaviors towards their teammates and the opponent both in or outside of the training or competition, regardless of the situation of the training or the competition, they think that they should stay away from humiliating and disabling attitudes and behaviors. It is thought that this is due to the strong emotional relationship among the team members and the high level of closeness to each other, and the respect they have for the opponent team players who are moving towards the same goal as themselves.

The Economic Security Dilemma in US-China Relations

China and the United States are caught in an economic security dilemma. In response to perceived economic aggression, both countries now feel impelled to bolster domestic economic security through protectionist and retaliatory measures that the other side perceives as threatening. In game theoretic terms, a mutually beneficial "Stag Hunt" coordination game devolved into an uncooperative "Prisoner's Dilemma" after the global financial crisis. In the economic security dilemma that emerged under Trump and Xi, both sides unsuccessfully attempted to coerce opponent behavior, further harming both economies. Using a game framework—as opposed to a structural or leadership-based account—helps demonstrate that China's recent reform reversal and revisionist approaches to the international economic order were not unavoidable parts of a long-term strategy, but rather developed partially as a response to perceived US aggressions.

Bounded Rationality and Strategic Uncertainty in a Simple Dominance Solvable Game

How much of the failures to achieve Pareto efficient outcome observed in a simple 2 x 2 dominance solvable game can be attributed to strategic uncertainty and how much is actually due to individual bounded rationality? We address this question by conducting a set of experiments involving two main treatments: one in which two human subjects interact, and another in which one human subject interacts with a computer program whose behavior is known. By making the behavior of the computer opponent perfectly predictable, the latter treatment eliminates strategic uncertainty. Our results suggest that observed coordination failures can be attributed equally to individual bounded rationality and strategic uncertainty.

The relationships between perfectionism, angry reactions, and antisocial behavior in team sport.

Perfectionism involves extreme requirements for perfection that may give rise to antisocial behaviour in team sport. To test this possibility, we first examined pathways linking self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism to antisocial behaviour. We then examined pathways linking other-oriented perfectionism to antisocial behaviour via angry reactions to poor teammate performance. A cross-sectional design was employed. Competitive team sport athletes (n = 257, Mage = 20.71 years, s = 4.10) completed measures of perfectionism, angry reactions to poor teammate performance, and antisocial behaviour. In testing the first aim, we found that self-oriented perfectionism shared no relationship with antisocial teammate behaviour and a negative relationship with antisocial opponent behaviour. By contrast, socially prescribed perfectionism shared positive relationships with antisocial behaviour toward teammates and opponents. In testing the second aim, we found that other-oriented perfectionism shared positive indirect relationships with antisocial behaviour toward teammates and opponents via angry reactions to poor teammate performance. In line with recent theoretical assertions, these findings suggest that there may be a darker side to perfectionism that is related with antisocial behaviour in team sport.

Bracketed morality in adolescent football players: A tale of two contexts

BackgroundThe concept of bracketed morality has received some empirical support in several sport studies. In this research, we examined bracketed morality in adolescent football players. Specifically, we investigated: (a) whether moral behaviour differs between two contexts - sport and school - and whether these differences are moderated by age and sex; and (b) whether context differences in moral behaviour are explained by corresponding context differences in peer motivational climate, moral disengagement, and empathy. DesignWe conducted two studies using a cross-sectional design. MethodIn both studies, adolescent football players completed measures of prosocial and antisocial behaviour toward their teammates and opponents in sport and toward their classmates in school. Participants also completed measures of peer motivational climate (Study 1) and moral disengagement and empathy (Study 2) in the two contexts. ResultsAcross the two studies and all age groups, prosocial teammate behaviour was more frequent in sport than school; the opposite pattern was revealed for prosocial opponent behaviour. Antisocial teammate behaviour was less frequent in sport than school in younger athletes, but there was no (overall) context difference in older athletes. In Study 2, in girls, antisocial opponent behaviour was more frequent in sport than school across all age groups. In boys, this behaviour was less frequent in sport than school in early adolescence, but this pattern was reversed in middle and late adolescence. Context differences in task peer climate accounted for context differences in the two prosocial behaviours, while context differences in moral disengagement accounted for context differences in the two antisocial behaviours. ConclusionsOur findings extend the concept of bracketed morality to moral behaviour in sport and school in adolescents and suggest that by intervening on task peer climate and moral disengagement we could reduce the gap in prosocial and antisocial behaviours between the two contexts.

Evolutionary Multiagent Transfer Learning With Model-Based Opponent Behavior Prediction

This article embarks a study on multiagent transfer learning (TL) for addressing the specific challenges that arise in complex multiagent systems where agents have different or even competing objectives. Specifically, beyond the essential backbone of a state-of-the-art evolutionary TL framework (eTL), this article presents the novel TL framework with prediction (eTL-P) as an upgrade over existing eTL to endow agents with abilities to interact with their opponents effectively by building candidate models and accordingly predicting their behavioral strategies. To reduce the complexity of candidate models, eTL-P constructs a monotone submodular function, which facilitates to select Top- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${K}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> models from all available candidate models based on their representativeness in terms of behavioral coverage as well as reward diversity. eTL-P also integrates social selection mechanisms for agents to identify their better-performing partners, thus improving their learning performance and reducing the complexity of behavior prediction by reusing useful knowledge with respect to their partners’ mind universes. Experiments based on a partner-opponent minefield navigation task (PO-MNT) have shown that eTL-P exhibits the superiority in achieving higher learning capability and efficiency of multiple agents when compared to the state-of-the-art multiagent TL approaches.

A Semi-Markov Decision Model With Inverse Reinforcement Learning for Recognizing the Destination of a Maneuvering Agent in Real Time Strategy Games

Recognizing the destination of a maneuvering agent is important to create intelligent AI players in Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. Among different ways of problem formulation, goal recognition can be solved as a model-based planning problem using off-the-shelf planners. However, the common problem in these frameworks is that they usually lack of the modeling of the action duration as in real-world scenarios the agent may take several steps to transit between grids. To solve this problem, a semi-Markov decision model (SMDM), which explicitly models the duration of an action, is proposed in this paper. Besides, most of the current works do not establish a behavioral model of the identified person, and there is almost no work modeling individual behavioral preference, which limits the accuracy of the recognition results. In this paper, the Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) method is adopted in opponent behavior learning for the destination recognition problem. To adapt to the dynamic environment, the Maximum Entropy Inverse Reinforcement Learning (MaxEnt IRL) method is transformed by defining a Fitness index to measure the effect of weight and use the Nelder-Mead polyhedron search to find the optimal weight. In experiments, we build the game scenario in the Unreal Engine 4 environment and collect the moving trajectories from the human players in several different tasks for evaluating the performance of our methods. The results show that the recognizer using IRL can recognize the destination effectively even if the intention changes during the midway, and it performs better than other models in terms of several most frequently-used metrics.

The Influence of strategic culture on shaping security policy

Objectives&lt;i&gt;The aim of the article is to present the role that strategic culture plays in creating and shaping security of the future. Taking account of the purpose of this paper, the main research problem took the form of the following question: To what extent does strategic culture have an influence on shaping security of the future?&lt;/i&gt;Methods&lt;i&gt;In order to achieve the aim of this paper and solve the main research problem, the following research methods will be applied: method of analysis, synthesis and method of conclusion.The empirical methods facilitate examination of processes with the aim of drawing conclusions. The article uses research method such as observation.&lt;/i&gt;Results&lt;i&gt;Strategic culture is not a dogma or a camera through which we can look into the past or the future. It is a tool useful for understanding how and what the circumstances are in which a country defines appropriate measures and goals to achieve its goals regarding security.&lt;/i&gt;Conclusions&lt;i&gt;Strategic culture can help to understand the real cultural identity of a particular entity (such as a country or an organization) and its role in the system of international relations in a better way. Therefore, it can contribute to a better understanding of security policy implemented by the entity and what is more, the analysis of strategic culture can lead to a better understanding of the opponent's strategic behaviour on the basis on how the opponent defines victory, defeat, loss or suffering.&lt;/i&gt;

Multi-agent reinforcement learning with approximate model learning for competitive games.

We propose a method for learning multi-agent policies to compete against multiple opponents. The method consists of recurrent neural network-based actor-critic networks and deterministic policy gradients that promote cooperation between agents by communication. The learning process does not require access to opponents’ parameters or observations because the agents are trained separately from the opponents. The actor networks enable the agents to communicate using forward and backward paths while the critic network helps to train the actors by delivering them gradient signals based on their contribution to the global reward. Moreover, to address nonstationarity due to the evolving of other agents, we propose approximate model learning using auxiliary prediction networks for modeling the state transitions, reward function, and opponent behavior. In the test phase, we use competitive multi-agent environments to demonstrate by comparison the usefulness and superiority of the proposed method in terms of learning efficiency and goal achievements. The comparison results show that the proposed method outperforms the alternatives.

"REOFUT" as an Observation Tool for Tactical Analysis on Offensive Performance in Soccer: Mixed Method Perspective.

Performance analysis in complex sports like soccer requires the study of the influence of the interaction between both teams during the game on final performance. The mixed methods approach involves the collection, analysis, and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data for the same purpose and within the framework of the same study. To build certain observation tools, mixed methods are necessary in order to take advantage of integration between qualitative and quantitative elements. The aim of this study was to develop a new no standard observation tool to analyze soccer offensive performance considering not only the observed team but also some aspects of the opponent behavior, as well as to test its reliability. The process consisted in expert meetings and exploratory observations. Experts carried out several design and re-design steps of the observation tool to its final form which includes two macro-criteria and 31 dimensions. The basic unit of analysis was the “team possession” and the main aims of study were: (a) technical, tactical and spatial characteristics of the start, the development and the end of the team possession and its offensive performance, (b) the behavior of the observed team just after losing the ball possession and its defensive performance. Inter-observer and intra-observer analysis were carried out and kappa coefficient was calculated to test the observation tool reliability and improve the quality of data. Results indicate that optimal inter and intra-reliability levels obtained in this work are high enough as for suggesting that the observation tool for offensive performance in soccer (REOFUT) could be an adequate tool for analyzing offensive play actions and their performance in soccer.

Is greed contagious? Four experimental studies

AbstractDo people become greedier when interacting with others they perceive to be greedy? It has been speculated that greed contagion exits and may have influenced the 2008 financial collapse. We examined this possibility in four experimental studies using a common pool resource dilemma. Specifically, whether participants' second‐round (R2) withdrawal from the common pool was influenced (a) by their assessment of how greedy their opponents' first‐round (R1) withdrawal was, (b) by R1 opponents' reputation for being greedy, (c) by observing past behavior of others in unrelated interactions, and (d) when R1 opponents directly confronted them with an assessment of their own greediness of their R1 withdrawal. In addition, Study 2 examined R2 interactions involving new opponents. Taken together, results suggest that there is contagion of greed. However, the connection appears to be driven by participants adjusting to their opponent's actual behavior, not by their evaluation of the greediness of such behavior. It seems that perceptions of greed do not mediate future behavior and, thus, are not necessarily contagious, but norms of selfish behavior are. In this sense, greed perceptions appear to by epiphenomenal in that they are an incidental by‐product of the behavioral interaction. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest directions for further research.

FOOLING MYSELF OR FOOLING OBSERVERS? AVOIDING SOCIAL PRESSURES BY MANIPULATING PERCEPTIONS OF DESERVINGNESS OF OTHERS

We present a novel experiment demonstrating strategies selfish individuals utilize to avoid social pressure to be altruistic. Subjects participate in a trust game, after which they have an opportunity to state their beliefs about their opponent's actions. Subsequently, subjects participate in a task designed to “reveal” their true beliefs. Subjects who initially made selfish choices falsely state their beliefs about their opponent's kindness. Their “revealed” beliefs were significantly more accurate, which exposed subjects' knowledge that their selfishness was unjustifiable by their opponent's behavior. The initial false statements complied with social norms, suggesting subjects' attempts to project a more favorable social image. (JEL C9, D03, D83)

Beyond the aggregate score: Using multilevel modeling to examine trajectories of laboratory-measured aggression.

Aggression is often measured in the laboratory as an iterative "tit-for-tat" sequence, in which two aggressors repeatedly inflict retaliatory harm upon each other. Aggression researchers typically quantify aggression by aggregating across participants' aggressive behavior on such iterative encounters. However, this "aggregate approach" cannot capture trajectories of aggression across the iterative encounters and needlessly eliminates rich information in the form of within-participant variability. As an alternative approach, I used multilevel modeling (MLM) to examine the slope of aggression across the 25-trial Taylor Aggression Paradigm as a function of trait physical aggression and experimental provocation. Across two preregistered studies (combined N = 392), participants exhibited a modest decline in aggression. This decline reflected a reciprocal strategy, in which participants responded to an initially-provocative opponent with greater aggression that then decreased over time to match their opponent's declining levels of aggression. Against predictions, trait physical aggression and experimental provocation did not affect participants' overall trajectories of aggression. Yet, exploratory analyses suggested that the participants' tendency to reciprocate their opponent's aggression with more aggression was greater at higher levels of trait physical aggression and attenuated among participants who had already been experimentally provoked by their opponent. These findings (a) illustrate several advantages of an MLM approach as compared with an aggregate approach to iterative laboratory aggression paradigms; (b) demonstrate that the magnifying effects of trait aggression and experimental provocation on laboratory aggression are stable over brief time-frames; and (c) suggest that modeling the opponent's behavior on such tasks reveals important information.

MDMA Increases Cooperation and Recruitment of Social Brain Areas When Playing Trustworthy Players in an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

Social decision-making is fundamental for successful functioning and can be affected in psychiatric illness and by serotoninergic modulation. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the archetypal paradigm to model cooperation and trust. However, the effect of serotonergic enhancement is poorly characterized, and its influence on the effect of variations in opponent behavior unknown. To address this, we conducted a study investigating how the serotonergic enhancer 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) modulates behavior and its neural correlates during an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma with both trustworthy and untrustworthy opponents. We administered 100 mg MDMA or placebo to 20 male participants in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study. While being scanned, participants played repeated rounds with opponents who differed in levels of cooperation. On each round, participants chose to compete or cooperate and were asked to rate their trust in the other player. Cooperation with trustworthy, but not untrustworthy, opponents was enhanced following MDMA but not placebo (respectively: odds ratio = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.42-2.84, p < 0.001; odds ratio = 1.37; 95% CI, 0.78-2.30, not significant). Specifically, MDMA enhanced recovery from, but not the impact of, breaches in cooperation. During trial outcome, MDMA increased activation of four clusters incorporating precentral and supramarginal gyri, superior temporal cortex, central operculum/posterior insula, and supplementary motor area. There was a treatment × opponent interaction in right anterior insula and dorsal caudate. Trust ratings did not change across treatment sessions. MDMA increased cooperative behavior when playing trustworthy opponents. Underlying this was a change in brain activity of regions linked to social cognition. Our findings highlight the context-specific nature of MDMA's effect on social decision-making.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We provide a detailed analysis of the effect of 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) on cooperative behavior during interpersonal interactions, as well as the neural correlates underlying these effects. We find that, following administration of MDMA, participants behave more cooperatively, but only when interacting with trustworthy partners. While breaches of trustworthy behavior have a similar impact following administration of MDMA compared with placebo, MDMA facilitates a greater recovery from these breaches of trust. Underlying this altered behavior are changes in brain activity during the viewing of opponents' behavior in regions whose involvement in social processing is well established. This work provides new insights into the impact of MDMA on social interactions, emphasizing the important role of the behavior of others toward us.

Social decision-making in the brain: Input-state-output modelling reveals patterns of effective connectivity underlying reciprocal choices.

During social interactions, decision‐making involves mutual reciprocity—each individual's choices are simultaneously a consequence of, and antecedent to those of their interaction partner. Neuroeconomic research has begun to unveil the brain networks underpinning social decision‐making, but we know little about the patterns of neural connectivity within them that give rise to reciprocal choices. To investigate this, the present study measured the behaviour and brain function of pairs of individuals (N = 66) whilst they played multiple rounds of economic exchange comprising an iterated ultimatum game. During these exchanges, both players could attempt to maximise their overall monetary gain by reciprocating their opponent's prior behaviour—they could promote generosity by rewarding it, and/or discourage unfair play through retaliation. By adapting a model of reciprocity from experimental economics, we show that players' choices on each exchange are captured accurately by estimating their expected utility (EU) as a reciprocal reaction to their opponent's prior behaviour. We then demonstrate neural responses that map onto these reciprocal choices in two brain regions implicated in social decision‐making: right anterior insula (AI) and anterior/anterior‐mid cingulate cortex (aMCC). Finally, with behavioural Dynamic Causal Modelling, we identified player‐specific patterns of effective connectivity between these brain regions with which we estimated each player's choices with over 70% accuracy; namely, bidirectional connections between AI and aMCC that are modulated differentially by estimates of EU from our reciprocity model. This input‐state‐output modelling procedure therefore reveals systematic brain–behaviour relationships associated with the reciprocal choices characterising interactive social decision‐making.

Contest decisions are governed by own size and opponent size category in mangrove rivulus fish, Kryptolebias marmoratus

When confronted with social challenge, animals extract information from their environment to make adaptive behavioural decisions. The size of an individual relative to its opponent is a decisive factor that could influence contest decisions and the outcome of social competition. Animals may determine whether or not to engage in fights by assessing each other's fighting ability (mutual assessment), or solely based on their own fighting ability (self-assessment). Mangrove rivulus, Kryptolebias marmoratus, have been reported to utilize both assessment strategies depending on the stage and intensity of a contest. However, it is still unclear whether rivulus' contest decisions are determined by their own body size, perceptions of size differences between themselves and opponents, or by information conveyed by opponents' behaviour. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether rivulus of different sizes respond differently when encountering opponents of varied sizes. We provided rivulus with a ‘stationary model opponent’ to fight against, which can isolate the effect of size (and size differences) on aggressive performance without the potentially confounding effects of opponent behaviour. We hypothesized that animals would be more willing to initiate a contest and behave more aggressively when interacting with a size-matched opponent because differences in fighting ability are less easily perceived. As size asymmetries increase, however, differences in fighting ability should be more obvious to the animals and, thus, they should be less willing to initiate a contest and behave less aggressively. Our data support our hypothesis and reveal that, during early stages of a contest, opponent size alone does not affect an individual's contest decisions. Additional sources of information (e.g. about one's own body size) likely contribute to decisions about whether or not to initiate a fight. However, once individuals engage physically, their own body size, but not opponent size, becomes a predictor of their aggression towards opponents.

Linking motivational climate with moral behavior in youth sport: The role of social support, perspective taking, and moral disengagement.

This study investigated whether motivational climate was associated with prosocial and antisocial behavior in youth athletes directly and indirectly via social support (i.e., emotional and esteem support), perspective taking, and moral disengagement. Two-hundred and seventy-five youth team sport players (156 boys; 119 girls) aged 11 to 16 years completed questionnaires assessing the study variables. Structural equation modelling revealed that mastery climate was positively associated with prosocial teammate behavior both directly and indirectly via social support. Mastery climate was also indirectly associated with prosocial opponent behavior via social support and perspective taking. Mastery climate was negatively associated with antisocial behavior towards opponents and teammates indirectly via social support, perspective taking, and moral disengagement. Performance climate was positively associated with antisocial behavior towards teammates directly and indirectly via moral disengagement: It was also indirectly associated with antisocial behavior towards opponents via moral disengagement. Our findings extend understanding about the variables that might explain relationships between motivational climate and moral conduct in youth athletes. Implications for sport practitioners are considered, especially in relation to approaches that could help foster moral character in young people through sport.

Evolutionary MCTS with Flexible Search Horizon

In turn-based multi-action adversarial games each player turn consists of several atomic actions, resulting in an extremely high branching factor. Many strategy board, card, and video games fall into this category, which is currently best played by Evolutionary MCTS (EMCTS) -- searching a tree with nodes representing action sequences as genomes, and edges representing mutations of those genomes. However, regular EMCTS is unable to search beyond the current player's turn, leading to strategic short-sightedness. In this paper, we extend EMCTS to search to any given search depth beyond the current turn, using simple models of its own and the opponent's behavior. Experiments on the game Hero Academy show that this Flexible-Horizon EMCTS (FH-EMCTS) convincingly outperforms several baselines including regular EMCTS, Online Evolutionary Planning (OEP), and vanilla MCTS, at all tested numbers of atomic actions per turn. Additionally, the separate contributions of the behavior models and the flexible search horizon are analyzed.

How memory cost, switching cost, and payoff non-linearity affect the evolution of persistence

Cooperation is a behavior which is costly to the actor and beneficial for the recipient. While in one-shot game, cooperation is not favored by natural selection, in repeated interactions, cooperation can be favored by natural selection if cooperators cooperate conditionally. Previous studies have revealed that retaliation, (imitate the opponent's behavior) and persistence, (imitate its own behavior) can promote the evolution of cooperation. Here, it is considered that a player has to remember its own behavior in order to behave persistently, and that a less switching cost is imposed to a persistent player. In this paper, we incorporate these costs and reexamine the effect of persistence on the evolution of cooperation. We have revealed that when memory cost is present, behaving persistently is not beneficial for its evolution, and that when switching cost is present, the evolution of persistence is more likely. Additionally, we also investigate the evolution of persistence in the case where payoff is not linear.

Определение уровня тактической подготовленности квалифицированных бегунов на 800 м

Purpose: determine the change in the level of tactical preparedness and tactics of competitive activity of qualified runners at 800 m. Material & Methods: theoretical analysis and generalization of literary sources; pedagogical observation; analysis of competitive activities; method of expert evaluation; methods of mathematical statistics. To determine the level of tactical preparedness of the runners, 20 experts were involved (10 coaches and 10 highly qualified athletes). The study involved athletes I category and CMS, specializing in running at 800 m aged 17–21 (10 boys and 10 girls). Results: revealed a low level of tactical preparedness of runners at 800 m. Improved tactical readiness indicators, namely the ability to analyze information about their rivals and the ability to use it during competitions, increase the diversity of the arsenal of tactical actions, increase the ability to impose their tactics and ability to quickly respond to the situation, which has changed, and instantly change tactical techniques depending on the opponent's behavior . Conclusion : shows the positive effect of specially designed exercises on the level of tactical preparedness of athletes. The redistribution of efforts of athletes at a distance, an increase in the average competitive speed and sports result.