Aspects of Game Theory in Personal Relationships
Typical associations people make with the term “game theory” include the game rock paper scissors, economic models or the famous “prisoner’s dilemma”, yet the principles of game theory show up in nearly every facet of life, including our personal relationships. Namely, the prisoner’s dilemma draws a striking parallel to our own interpersonal ties. In the case of a romantic relationship, two “players” both have the option of either cooperating with their significant other, or ending the relationship in hopes of finding something better. In the case that both players choose to cooperate, the payoffs may be positive, yet potential payoffs may be higher if the one of the two partners chooses to leave the relationship–of course the partner who chose to stay would have their heart broken, and thus a lower payoff. In the case that both players leave the relationship, the payoff is lower than if they had both chosen to stay, since it entails that both people are unhappy in the current relationship. The Nash Equilibrium for the prisoner’s dilemma dictates that the dominant strategy is to confess, yet the nuances of everyday life make this model difficult to translate to a romantic relationship.
In fact, a prolonged relationship in which player’s decisions rely not only on the current situation but also on past experiences is better modeled by a version of the classic scenario: the “iterated prisoner’s dilemma”, in which the game is played out over several iterations, with players basing their decisions on the results of the previous rounds as well. This was modeled by in 1980 by political scientist Robert Axelrod, who ran multiple computerized iterated simulations of the prisoner’s dilemma to determine optimal strategies. He came to the conclusion of the “tit-for-tat” strategy which mimics it’s partners move for its own every iteration. The applications of this strategy can be demonstrated in personal relationships, since both partners can expect their actions to be mirrored in following iterations. Furthermore, Axelrod’s findings demonstrate that what may typically be considered an optimal strategy cannot always be directly translated to real-life situations.
Resource: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jess-carson/the-kind-mathematics-of-s_b_8998032.html
Resource: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1998-99/game-theory/axelrod.html