A Computer-Based Method for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Iterative Chicken Game

The present study develops an artificial agent that plays the iterative chicken game based on a computational model that describes human behavior in competitive social interactions in terms of fairness. The computational model we adopted in this study, named as the self-concept fairness model, decides the agent’s action according to the evaluation of fairness of both opponent and self. We implemented the artificial agent in a computer program with a set of parameters adjustable by researchers. These parameters allow researchers to determine the extent to which the agent behaves aggressively or cooperatively. To demonstrate the use of the proposed method for the investigation of human behavior, we performed an experiment in which human participants played the iterative chicken game against the artificial agent. Participants were divided into two groups, each being informed to play with either a person or the computer. The behavioral analysis results showed that the proposed method can induce changes in the behavioral pattern of human players by changing the agent’s behavioral pattern. Also, we found that participants tended to be more sensitive to fairness when they played with a human opponent than with a computer opponent. These results support that the artificial agent developed in this study will be useful to investigate human behavior in competitive social interactions.

Effortless Retaliation: the Neural Dynamics of Interpersonal Intentions in a Chicken Game Using Brain-Computer Interface

The desire for retaliation is a common response across a majority of human societies. However, the neural mechanisms underlying aggression and retaliation remain unclear. Previous studies on social intentions are confounded by low-level response related brain activity. Using an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) combined with the Chicken Game, our study examined the neural dynamics of aggression and retaliation after controlling for nonessential response related neural signals. Our results show that aggression is associated with reduced alpha event-related desynchronization (ERD), indicating reduced mental effort. Moreover, retaliation and tit-for-tat strategy use are also linked with smaller alpha-ERD. Our study provides a novel method to minimize motor confounds and demonstrates that choosing aggression and retaliation is less effortful in social conflicts.

Process R&D investment and social dilemmas

We consider a coopetitive game model of firms’ behavior in process R&D with entry cost. We compare the competitive behavior of firms in R&D with the R&D coopetition scenario. In R&D coopetition, firms engage in a bargaining process to reach a binding R&D agreement. We find that R&D competition can lead to a prisoner’s dilemma or a chicken game between market rivals. The possibility of entering a binding R&D agreement resolves the above social dilemmas associated with the firms’ competitive behavior. In turn, under R&D coopetition, for a medium level of R&D entry cost, firms may enter a trust dilemma, but it is a beneficial scenario in comparison with the corresponding R&D competition outcome.

A recuperação judicial especial é mais vantajosa do que a recuperação judicial ordinária? Uma análise à luz da Teoria dos Jogos

Resumo Em atenção à importância econômica das micro e pequenas empresas para o país, o ordenamento jurídico pátrio prevê uma série de benefícios para essas empresas. Entre esses benefícios, o regime de recuperação judicial especial, criado para ser menos complexo e mais acessível às micro e pequenas empresas, é bastante criticado pela doutrina especializada, especialmente no que tange ao procedimento de aprovação do plano de recuperação judicial. Este artigo pretendeu testar essa hipótese, i.e., verificar se, de fato, o regime de aprovação do plano de recuperação judicial especial é menos favorável do que o procedimento previsto na recuperação judicial ordinária. Para tanto, utilizou-se um modelo da Teoria dos Jogos chamado de “Chicken Game” ou “Jogo do Banana” para modelar a estrutura de incentivos dos credores e do devedor. Observou-se, assim, que, ao contrário do que se poderia imaginar, ceteris paribus, a eliminação da possibilidade de negociação do plano de recuperação judicial especial permite que um plano de recuperação judicial mais favorável aos interesses do devedor seja aprovado mais facilmente do que na recuperação judicial ordinária.

Governments Playing Games and Combating the Dynamics of a Terrorist Organization

Multiple governments are modeled as intervening through time and selectively against terrorism sponsors and a terrorist organization’s three labor stocks, i.e., ideologues, criminal mercenaries, and captive participants. The three labor stocks and sponsors are modeled with four differential time equations. Differential equations and game theory are combined in interesting ways. The governments play games with each other on how to intervene. Depending on the unit intervention cost from high to low, the paper shows how governments may refrain from intervening, may free ride on each other in a prisoner’s dilemma, may intervene as in the chicken game, may intervene unilaterally, may coordinate between multiple equilibria, and may intervene jointly. Mixed strategies are analyzed for governments preferring to create uncertainty, or decrease the uncertainty, for example, when playing the chicken game. Intervention may successfully curtail or terminate the terrorist organization over various time horizons, or may fail to do so causing unbounded growth. This paper provides a tool for decision and policy makers to understand the evolution and composition of a terrorist organization through time depending on intervention.

Dynamic utility: the sixth reciprocity mechanism for the evolution of cooperation

Game theory has been extensively applied to elucidate the evolutionary mechanism of cooperative behaviour. Dilemmas in game theory are important elements that disturb the promotion of cooperation. An important question is how to escape from dilemmas. Recently, a dynamic utility function (DUF) that considers an individual's current status (wealth) and that can be applied to game theory was developed. The DUF is different from the famous five reciprocity mechanisms called Nowak's five rules. Under the DUF, cooperation is promoted by poor players in the chicken game, with no changes in the prisoner's dilemma and stag-hunt games. In this paper, by comparing the strengths of the two dilemmas, we show that the DUF is a novel reciprocity mechanism (sixth rule) that differs from Nowak's five rules. We also show the difference in dilemma relaxation between dynamic game theory and (traditional) static game theory when the DUF and one of the five rules are combined. Our results indicate that poor players unequivocally promote cooperation in any dynamic game. Unlike conventional rules that have to be brought into game settings, this sixth rule is universally (canonical form) applicable to any game because all repeated/evolutionary games are dynamic in principle.

Boris Johnson: Getting Brexit Done?

This chapter provides an overview of the premiership of Boris Johnson between July and December 2019, detailing the progress of Brexit negotiations and the General Election – events that shaped the final trajectory of Brexit but also in all probability the course of Britain’s future for the coming decades. The events described are thus literally nation defining. Brexit from its inception in 2016 had brought to society and politics extreme convulsions, drama and chaos and those characteristics were especially evident in the Johnson premiership, prior to the election. The former Prime Minister David Cameron was moved to describe some of the antics as “sharp practice”. Such traits were compounded by the fact that under the Johnson premiership Brexit resembled a game theory stratagem. Game theory is where individual agents or institutions are assumed to interact strategically and is a concept used in the chapter to try and decipher the machinations and tactics of a radicalised section of the political class through the application of the chicken game, madman theory and the opposition through Mexican standoff.