Game Theory in Human Morality
The Gore Laboratory in MIT applies knowledge of evolutionary biology and game theory to simulate manipulation and preference in exclusive relationships. In the study, they designed an “envelope” game where, contrast to the prisoner’s dilemma we talked about in class that requires both parties to decide simultaneously or uninformed the strategies of the other side, player A decides first whether to look at the envelope with high or low temptation and then whether to cooperate so that both players can get pay-off or to defect and deny the benefit of B. Player B can respond to A’s strategy by choosing stop the game where no one gets payoffs or continue based on A’s decision. Since it would be in the best interest for both to player longer and therefore win more, knowing that player B can “punish” A for defecting would in the reverse influence A’s strategy. Without the element of looking, the Nash Equilibrium is straight-forward: cooperate and continue the game. “Looking” complicates this game in that B would not only end the game because A defect but also if A shows unreliability by his/her decision.
This alteration of Nash’s game theory more closely emulates the actual dynamics in human interactions, with inevitable time delay between each person to make decisions and uncertainty due to inaccessible minds even people involved know each other well. People are constantly trying to ramify and predict other’s actions while the other side can go one step further and adjust their accordingly to fact that you’ve also predicted their actions. In some cases, people strategically wait to see the other’s decision to learn about the other. Player A who chooses to look sends the signal of his/her disinterest in maintaining the relationship, and would be characterized by B as unreliable and more likely for B to terminate the game. However, if A defects with looking, B may consider A as self-interested but will continue the game as he/she determines that A will cooperate depending on the content of envelope. On the other hand, B might choose to terminate the game even though A cooperates but after looking. The action of looking here is a perfect analogy to the morality we rely so heavily on in daily social life. Despite that the action itself has no direct impact on the payoffs, we believe it’s reflective of one person’s character that would guide his/her future action. It provides explanation for why we honor virtue and principle so much that forgive considerable benefits at the time being.