Scientific Definition
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
Plain-English Definition
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
Feynman Explanation
Homo economicus loses to a college student in real experiments.
Core Principle
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Negotiation, pricing, and competitive strategy modeled with realistic counterparties.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Homo economicus loses to a college student in real experiments.
Examples
- Ultimatum game offers cluster near 50/50, not 1/99.
- Negotiation, pricing, and competitive strategy modeled with realistic counterparties.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Strip homo economicus assumptions out of your strategy game tree.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Strip homo economicus assumptions out of your strategy game tree.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
One party's gain is exactly another party's loss.
Combine extreme safety with extreme risk; avoid the middle.
Allocating finite resources across many fronts when the opponent does the same — no dominant strategy exists.
Coordinated action that produces outcomes unavailable to individual actors.
Designing organizations to ride doubling curves — AI, data, compute, biotech — rather than linear improvement.
Individual rationality produces collective irrationality.
Causal chain from inputs to outputs to outcomes to impact.
Start cooperative; copy your counterpart's last move thereafter.
Where, how, what — in that order.
Players choose how much to contribute to a shared pot; selfish theory predicts zero, real humans contribute, and punishment of free-riders sustains cooperation.
Decision-makers should bear the consequences of their decisions.