Guilt Aversion and Ambiguity in the Battle of Sexes Game

Giuseppe De Marco, Maria Romaniello and Alba Roviello
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Maria Romaniello: Department of Economics, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Corso Gran Priorato di Malta, 81043 Capua, Italy
Alba Roviello: Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Napoli Federico II, Via Cupa Cinthia, 80126 Napoli, Italy

Mathematics, 2025, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-30

Abstract: We analyze the effects of guilt aversion in the Battle of Sexes game by exploiting the theory of psychological games and the concept of psychological Nash equilibrium. We then examine the impact of ambiguity in the (second-order) beliefs by taking into account the theory of psychological games under ambiguity. Our results show that the sensitivity to guilt affects the mixed strategy equilibrium of the game, as a player might be willing to accept a lower expected utility to compensate for the other player’s disutility from guilt. In turn, a pessimistic attitude towards ambiguity makes this effect more evident, as it makes the disutility from guilt greater.

Keywords: battle of sexes; guilt aversion; psychological games; ambiguous beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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