Incorporating rules for responding into evolutionary games

John M. McNamara (), Catherine E. Gasson and Alasdair I Houston
Additional contact information
John M. McNamara: School of Mathematics, University of Bristol
Catherine E. Gasson: School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol
Alasdair I Houston: School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6751, 368-371

Abstract: Abstract Evolutionary game theory1,2 is concerned with the evolutionarily stable outcomes of the process of natural selection. The theory is especially relevant when the fitness of an organism depends on the behaviour of other members of its population. Here we focus on the interaction between two organisms that have a conflict of interest. The standard approach to such two-player games is to assume that each player chooses a single action and that the evolutionarily stable action of each player is the best given the action of its opponent. We argue that, instead, most two-player games should be modelled as involving a series of interactions in which opponents negotiate the final outcome. Thus we should be concerned with evolutionarily stable negotiation rules rather than evolutionarily stable actions. The evolutionarily stable negotiation rule of each player is the best rule given the rule of its opponent. As we show, the action chosen as a result of the negotiation is not the best action given the action of the opponent. This conclusion necessitates a fundamental change in the way that evolutionary games are modelled.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/43869 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:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6751:d:10.1038_43869

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

DOI: 10.1038/43869

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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