Capturing the complexity of human strategic decision-making with machine learning

Jian-Qiao Zhu (), Joshua C. Peterson, Benjamin Enke and Thomas L. Griffiths
Additional contact information
Jian-Qiao Zhu: Princeton University
Joshua C. Peterson: Boston University
Benjamin Enke: Harvard University
Thomas L. Griffiths: Princeton University

Nature Human Behaviour, 2025, vol. 9, issue 10, 2114-2120

Abstract: Abstract Strategic decision-making is a crucial component of human interaction. Here we conduct a large-scale study of strategic decision-making in the context of initial play in two-player matrix games, analysing over 90,000 human decisions across more than 2,400 procedurally generated games that span a much wider space than previous datasets. We show that a deep neural network trained on this dataset predicts human choices with greater accuracy than leading theories of strategic behaviour, revealing systematic variation unexplained by existing models. By modifying this network, we develop an interpretable behavioural model that uncovers key insights: individuals’ abilities to respond optimally and reason about others’ actions are highly context dependent, influenced by the complexity of the game matrices. Our findings illustrate the potential of machine learning as a tool for generating new theoretical insights into complex human behaviours.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02230-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:9:y:2025:i:10:d:10.1038_s41562-025-02230-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-025-02230-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().