Coevolution of deception and preferences: Darwin and Nash meet Machiavelli

Yuval Heller and Erik Mohlin ()

Games and Economic Behavior, 2019, vol. 113, issue C, 223-247

Abstract: We develop a framework in which individuals' preferences coevolve with their abilities to deceive others about their preferences and intentions. Specifically, individuals are characterised by (i) a level of cognitive sophistication and (ii) a subjective utility function. Increased cognition is costly, but higher-level individuals have the advantage of being able to deceive lower-level opponents about their preferences and intentions in some of the matches. In the remaining matches, the individuals observe each other's preferences. Our main result shows that, essentially, only efficient outcomes can be stable. Moreover, under additional mild assumptions, we show that an efficient outcome is stable if and only if the gain from unilateral deviation is smaller than the effective cost of deception in the environment.

Keywords: Evolution of preferences; Indirect evolutionary approach; Theory of mind; Depth of reasoning; Deception; Efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C73 D03 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Coevolution of deception and preferences: Darwin and Nash meet Machiavelli (2020)
Working Paper: Coevolution of Deception and Preferences: Darwin and Nash Meet Machiavelli (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:113:y:2019:i:c:p:223-247

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2018.09.011

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