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altruism
Behavior of an individual that benefits others. To the extent that the “others” are related to the altruist (the one exhibiting altruistic behavior), such actions may actually be an expression of ...
Ayn Rand
(1905–82)Russian-born novelist whose extreme and simplistic views give her a following on the political right. Her philosophy of ‘objectivism’ is in fact simple egoism, a doctrine widely thought ...
chicken
A two-person strategic game (1), generally considered to be the prototype of a dangerous game. In its canonical interpretation, two motorists speed towards each other. Each has the option of swerving ...
collective-action problem
Any situation in which the uncoordinated actions of each player may not result in the best outcome he or she can achieve. Two famous examples are Chicken and Prisoners' Dilemma, another class of ...
collective/distributive
Taking a class of things collectively is contrasted with taking them separately or distributively. Not knowing which is meant can be fatal. Article II of the American Bill of Rights states that ‘a ...
coordination problem
A situation in which the interests of agents coincide, and the aim is to try to reach an outcome in which those interests are satisfied. Informally, this is a situation in which each person has an ...
decision theory
A normative (1) approach to decision making based on expected utility theory, some versions also incorporating Bayesian inference. It starts from the assumption that, for any pair of alternatives, ...
dilemma
A situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially ones that are equally undesirable (see also on the horns of a dilemma). The word is recorded from ...
dominance
In decision theory, one choice dominates another if it is at least as good under all outcomes and better under some. This is commonly put by saying that it can win and cannot lose. Pascal's wager may ...
dominant alternative/strategy
In decision theory and game theory, an alternative or strategy (2) that, in every contingency that might arise, yields a payoff at least as good as the payoff from any other available alternative or ...
egoism
Egoism is usually considered in two forms. Psychological egoism is the view that people are always motivated by self-interest. Ethical egoism is the view that whether or not people are like this, ...
emotion
(i-moh-shŏn)a state of arousal that can be experienced as pleasant or unpleasant. Emotions can have three components: for example, fear can involve an unpleasant subjective experience, an increase in ...
equilibrium
A state of balance in a system that is produced and maintained by a variety of forces which may increase or decrease but they always cancel each other out, producing a steady state. See also chemical ...
experimental economics
A field of economics that uses controlled experiments, laboratory as well as field, to test and/or estimate economic models.
game
1 An interactive decision modelled in game theory. Also called a strategic game or a game of strategy. See Chicken game, Dollar Auction game, Newcomb's problem, N-person Prisoner's Dilemma, ...
game theory
This concerns making rational decisions under uncertain conditions. In geography, game theory is often used to overcome or outwit the environment. A. Dinar et al. (2008) apply game theory to ...
mathematical model
A representation of a biological process, system, or relationship by means of a mathematical equation or set of equations, often involving several random variables. The model usually consists of a ...
mixed-motive game
In game theory, any game in which the players' preferences among the outcomes are partly coincident and partly opposed, motivating the players both to cooperate and to compete, as in the Prisoner's ...
Nash equilibrium
In game theory, a profile of strategy (2) choices such that every player's strategy is a best reply to the strategies chosen by the other players. Given the strategies chosen by the other players ...
N-person Prisoner's Dilemma
The first and most fundamental type of multi-person social dilemma, a generalization of the Prisoner's Dilemma game to include more than two players, discovered simultaneously and independently in ...
