Game Theory is decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do. It sits in the Social dimension (SOC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-SOC-0015, within the Strategy family. The core principle: decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
Plain-English Definition
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
Feynman Explanation
You're not playing against the market. You're playing against everyone playing the market.
Core Principle
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Anticipating competitor and counterparty moves.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
You're not playing against the market. You're playing against everyone playing the market.
Examples
- Pricing wars. Standards adoption. M&A.
- Anticipating competitor and counterparty moves.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
Most organizations meet this element as a personnel problem. It is not one. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: you're not playing against the market. You're playing against everyone playing the market. Every element in the Social dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, anticipating competitor and counterparty moves. It is amplified whenever anticipating competitor and counterparty moves. Inside organizations that shows up as anticipating competitor and counterparty moves. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to always model the second player. Never the first move alone. Watch for it at the boundaries: handoffs, promotions, incident reviews, and budget cycles are where this element gets its power.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Always model the second player. Never the first move alone.
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.
- Always model the second player. Never the first move alone.
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.
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
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.
Where Game Theory is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayYour Best People Are Optimizing Against You
Social proof and internal competition.
- DiagnosticCultural Performance Audit™
How revealed group behavior is measured.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Game Theory
- What is Game Theory?
- Game Theory is decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do. It sits in the Social dimension (SOC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-SOC-0015, within the Strategy family. The core principle: decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Game Theory?
- Anticipating competitor and counterparty moves. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-SOC-0015).
- How is Game Theory exploited?
- Anticipating competitor and counterparty moves.
- How do you design around Game Theory?
- Always model the second player. Never the first move alone.
- Which behavioral dimension does Game Theory belong to?
- Game Theory is classified in the Social dimension (SOC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Strategy", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-SOC-0015 and its evidence grade is B.