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Games
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Behavioral Game Theory: Theory and Experiments
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Behavioral Game Theory: Theory and Experiments

A special issue of Games (ISSN 2073-4336).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2019) | Viewed by 15032

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Carlos Gracia-Lázaro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: complex systems; evolution; game theory; cooperation; social dynamics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are glad to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue “Behavioral Game Theory: Theory and Experiments.”

Game Theory constitutes a powerful tool to design and study mathematical models of strategic interaction between rational decision-makers. During the last two decades, there has been growing interest in these models being realistic and representative of real situations, which implies that both the players’ strategies and the rules governing their interactions have to be realistic and based, respectively, on the way people make decisions and interact with each other. In this sense, Behavioral Game Theory combines the methods of Game Theory with Experimental Economics and Experimental Psychology to study decision-making processes in real-societal scenarios.

This Special Issue aims to bring together researchers from various fields of Behavioral Game Theory, including Economics, Complex Systems Science, Sociology, and Psychology. We accept both experimental and human-based theoretical contributions. Both short reviews and original papers will be considered for publication.

Dr. Carlos Gracia-Lázaro
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Games is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Evolutionary games
  • Social dilemmas
  • Bounded rationality
  • Human behavior
  • Experimental economics
  • Experimental psychology
  • Complex systems
  • Evolution of cooperation
  • Cooperation games
  • Coordination games
  • Anti-coordination games
  • Laboratory experiments
  • Field experiments
  • Lab-in-the-field experiments

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

28 pages, 976 KiB  
Article
Direct Reciprocity and Model-Predictive Strategy Update Explain the Network Reciprocity Observed in Socioeconomic Networks
by Fabio Della Rossa, Fabio Dercole and Anna Di Meglio
Games 2020, 11(1), 16; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/g11010016 - 16 Mar 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3656
Abstract
Network reciprocity has been successfully put forward (since M. A. Nowak and R. May’s, 1992, influential paper) as the simplest mechanism—requiring no strategical complexity—supporting the evolution of cooperation in biological and socioeconomic systems. The mechanism is actually the network, which makes agents’ interactions [...] Read more.
Network reciprocity has been successfully put forward (since M. A. Nowak and R. May’s, 1992, influential paper) as the simplest mechanism—requiring no strategical complexity—supporting the evolution of cooperation in biological and socioeconomic systems. The mechanism is actually the network, which makes agents’ interactions localized, while network reciprocity is the property of the underlying evolutionary process to favor cooperation in sparse rather than dense networks. In theoretical models, the property holds under imitative evolutionary processes, whereas cooperation disappears in any network if imitation is replaced by the more rational best-response rule of strategy update. In social experiments, network reciprocity has been observed, although the imitative behavior did not emerge. What did emerge is a form of conditional cooperation based on direct reciprocity—the propensity to cooperate with neighbors who previously cooperated. To resolve this inconsistency, network reciprocity has been recently shown in a model that rationally confronts the two main behaviors emerging in experiments—reciprocal cooperation and unconditional defection—with rationality introduced by extending the best-response rule to a multi-step predictive horizon. However, direct reciprocity was implemented in a non-standard way, by allowing cooperative agents to temporarily cut the interaction with defecting neighbors. Here, we make this result robust to the way cooperators reciprocate, by implementing direct reciprocity with the standard tit-for-tat strategy and deriving similar results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Behavioral Game Theory: Theory and Experiments)
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24 pages, 771 KiB  
Article
Does Informational Equivalence Preserve Strategic Behavior? Experimental Results on Trockel’s Model of Selten’s Chain Store Story
by Papatya Duman
Games 2020, 11(1), 9; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/g11010009 - 07 Feb 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4163
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to experimentally test Trockel’s game, which is a modelling of the classical Chain Store Game (CSG), and determine whether one of the two theories of Equality and Deterrence may better account for the observed behavior. The CSG [...] Read more.
The purpose of this study is to experimentally test Trockel’s game, which is a modelling of the classical Chain Store Game (CSG), and determine whether one of the two theories of Equality and Deterrence may better account for the observed behavior. The CSG is an example of a simple game in extensive form where the actual behavior of well-informed players cannot be expected to agree with the clear results of game theoretical reasoning. To explain the disagreement between the theory and the expected behavior, Trockel’s game is proposed as an alternative modelling of the scenario. The existence of more than one equilibrium in Trockel’s game opens a door for reputation building. This study is the first attempt to experimentally test this alternative game with the same purpose. According to my data, there is some evidence in favor of both Equality and Deterrence Hypotheses. However, since the strategies compatible with the Equality Hypothesis are played more frequently, I observe some patterns which share the same intuition with the Deterrence Hypothesis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Behavioral Game Theory: Theory and Experiments)
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14 pages, 1532 KiB  
Article
Computational Behavioral Models for Public Goods Games on Social Networks
by Marco Tomassini and Alberto Antonioni
Games 2019, 10(3), 35; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/g10030035 - 02 Sep 2019
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5772
Abstract
Cooperation is a fundamental aspect of well-organized societies and public good games are a useful metaphor for modeling cooperative behavior in the presence of strong incentives to free ride. Usually, social agents interact to play a public good game through network structures. Here, [...] Read more.
Cooperation is a fundamental aspect of well-organized societies and public good games are a useful metaphor for modeling cooperative behavior in the presence of strong incentives to free ride. Usually, social agents interact to play a public good game through network structures. Here, we use social network structures and computational agent rules inspired by recent experimental work in order to develop models of agent behavior playing public goods games. The results of our numerical simulations based on a couple of simple models show that agents behave in a manner qualitatively similar to what has been observed experimentally. Computational models such as those presented here are very useful to interpret observed behavior and to enhance computationally the limited variation that is possible in the experimental domain. By assuming a priori reasonable individual behaviors, the easiness of running simulations could also facilitate exploration prior to any experimental work in order to vary and estimate a number of key parameters that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to change during the actual experiment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Behavioral Game Theory: Theory and Experiments)
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