The Evolution of Generosity in the Ultimatum Game.

ABSTRACT: When humans fail to make optimal decisions in strategic games and economic gambles, researchers typically try to explain why that behaviour is biased. To this end, they search for mechanisms that cause human behaviour to deviate from what seems to be the rational optimum. But perhaps human behaviour is not biased; perhaps research assumptions about the optimality of strategies are incomplete. In the one-shot anonymous symmetric ultimatum game (UG), humans fail to play optimally as defined by the Nash equilibrium. However, the distinction between kin and non-kin-with kin detection being a key evolutionary adaption-is often neglected when deriving the "optimal" strategy. We computationally evolved strategies in the UG that were equipped with an evolvable probability to discern kin from non-k

SUBMITTER: Hintze A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5039727 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature