Decision And Game Theory

Making Choices in Social Situations

by Jeremy Seligman

This is work in progress, to be included in the present state in the 2011 Logic and Interactive Rationality (LIRa) yearbook, Amsterdam:
http://www.illc.uva.nl/lgc/seminar/?page_id=727

Comments very welcome

We propose a general account of decision making in social situations based on an analysis of the role of three... more We propose a general account of decision making in social situations based on an analysis of the role of three concepts: knowledge, preference and freedom of choice. The normative aspect of decision making is sharply contrasted with the descriptive aspect, as is the distinction between a priori and a posteriori rationality. As a partial validation of the analysis, we apply our account to the theory of strategic games with both pure and mixed (probabilistic) strategies, showing that the concept of a dominated strategy and Nash equilibrium are correctly predicted by more general norms. Our account is purely model-theoretic but uses discrete relational structures that are well-suited for future application of the techniques of modal logic.

Viability of decision-making systems in human and animal groups

by Cedric Sueur

Recursive expected utility and the separation of attitudes towards risk and ambiguity: an experimental study

by Sujoy Chakravarty

Risk, Ambiguity-Gains, Losses

by Sujoy Chakravarty

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Working Paper 2006

A rule-of-thumb based on social affiliation explains collective movements in desert baboons

by Cedric Sueur

Selective mimetism at departure in collective movements of Macaca tonkeana: an experimental and theoretical approach

by Cedric Sueur

From the first intention movement to the last joiner: macaques combine mimetic rules to optimize their collective decisions

by Cedric Sueur

Group decision-making in chacma baboons: leadership, order and communication during movement

by Cedric Sueur

"Invisibility, The War Machine and Prigogine: Physics, Philosophy and the Threshold of Historical Consciousness in Pynchon's Zone."

by Martin E. Rosenberg

_Pynchon Notes_ 30-31, Fall 1992. Available online at:
http://bart.tcc.virginia.edu/tradzoneworkshop/Papers/Invisibility.pdf

ANU-Digital Collections: Conventions and Cooperative Virtues: Some Observations on Evolutionary Game-Theoretic Explanations of Social

by Bruno Verbeek

Game theory and moral norms: an overview and an application

by Bruno Verbeek

Instrumental Rationality and Moral Philosophy: an essay on the virtues of cooperation

by Bruno Verbeek

Game theory and ethics

by Bruno Verbeek

Consequentialism, rationality and the relevant description of outcomes

by Bruno Verbeek

CONSEQUENTIALISM AND RATIONAL CHOICE: LESSONS FROM THE ALLAIS PARADOX

by Bruno Verbeek

Rational Choice Virtues

by Bruno Verbeek

The Story of Rational Action

by J. David Velleman

Originally published in Philosophical Topics (1993). Reprinted in The Possibility of Practical Reason, online in the SPO Monograph Series.

An explanation for the normativity of the axioms of decision theory. An explanation for the normativity of the axioms of decision theory.

Open and Closed Questions in Decision-making

by Jeremy Seligman

XIONG, Z.; SELIGMAN, J.M., ‘Open and closed questions in decision-making’, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 278, 3 November 2011, Pages 261-274, ISSN 1571-0661, 10.1016/j.entcs.2011.10.020.

By asking questions, an agent can modify the range of options from which a decision is made.[Zuojun Xiong and Jeremy... more By asking questions, an agent can modify the range of options from which a decision is made.[Zuojun Xiong and Jeremy Seligman. How questions guide choices: a preliminary logical investigation. In Dianhui Wang and Mark Reynolds, editors, The 24th Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, 2011] introduced a logic for reasoning about this role of question-asking in the decision-making process. The base logic is a modal logic with an operator D interpreted by: Dϕ iff after any rational choice that the agent can make, ϕ holds. On top of this, we proposed an analysis of questions as dynamic operators [?Q] and [!Q] which alter the range of options available to the agent in various ways. In the present paper, we provide a complete axiomatisation for this dynamic logic, and extend the analysis to complex questions. A particular characterisation of the transitivity of the preference order in terms of invariance under changes of the order in which questions are asked. This is applied to a notorious case of transitivity failure: Condorcetʼs voting paradox.

The social field as an infinite game: game theory within and beyond its limits

by Lucas Perkins

Game theory as a marketing tool: uses and limitations

by Gandolfo Dominici

G. Dominici. 2011, "Game Theory as a Marketing Tool: Uses and Limitations.",  Elixir Journal (online),  36:  3524-3528

The growth of complexity of the business environment in which firms operate, calls for more effective tools, able to... more The growth of complexity of the business environment in which firms operate, calls for more effective tools, able to consider the effect of the strategic choices of the actors of the market and to supply information useful for managerial decision process. Game theory seems to be an ideal candidate for this scope. Nevertheless, because of its axiomatic approach, its validity to highlight and define marketing issues has many critics. This paper analyses the main literature about the use of game theory for marketing management decisions and highlights its limits in this field in order to answer to the question: Can game  theory be an effective marketing tool?