Related papers: On individual neutrality and collective decision m…
We define and investigate a property of mechanisms that we call "strategic simplicity," and that is meant to capture the idea that, in strategically simple mechanisms, strategic choices require limited strategic sophistication. We define a…
The traditional axiomatic approach to voting is motivated by the problem of reconciling differences in subjective preferences. In contrast, a dominant line of work in the theory of voting over the past 15 years has considered a different…
People often interact repeatedly: with relatives, through file sharing, in politics, etc. Many such interactions are reciprocal: reacting to the actions of the other. In order to facilitate decisions regarding reciprocal interactions, we…
We study how groups reach consensus by varying communication network structure and individual incentives. In 342 networks of seven individuals, single opinionated "leaders" can drive decision outcomes, but do not accelerate consensus…
Common sense suggests that when individuals explain why they believe something, we can arrive at more accurate conclusions than when they simply state what they believe. Yet, there is no known mechanism that provides incentives to elicit…
Selective rationalization has become a common mechanism to ensure that predictive models reveal how they use any available features. The selection may be soft or hard, and identifies a subset of input features relevant for prediction. The…
Large language models and other highly capable AI systems ease the burdens of deciding what to say or do, but this very ease can undermine the effectiveness of our actions in social contexts. We explain this apparent tension by introducing…
We present a fascinating model that has lately caught attention among physicists working in complexity related fields. Though it originated from mathematics and later from economics, the model is very enlightening in many aspects that we…
A growing body of empirical evidence indicates that social and cooperative behavior can be affected by cognitive and neurological factors, suggesting the existence of state-based decision-making mechanisms that may have emerged by…
An essential task of groups is to provide efficient solutions for the complex problems they face. Indeed, considerable efforts have been devoted to the question of collective decision-making related to problems involving a single dominant…
In the interaction between agents we can have an explicative discourse, when communicating preferences or intentions, and a normative discourse, when considering normative knowledge. For justifying their actions our agents are endowed with…
Recent work has considered theoretical models for the behavior of agents with specific behavioral biases: rather than making decisions that optimize a given payoff function, the agent behaves inefficiently because its decisions suffer from…
We consider a community of users who must make periodic decisions about whether to interact with one another. We propose a protocol which allows honest users to reliably interact with each other, while limiting the damage done by each…
Humans currently use arguments for explaining choices which are already made, or for evaluating potential choices. Each potential choice has usually pros and cons of various strengths. In spite of the usefulness of arguments in a decision…
Scientists are generally subject to social pressures, including pressures to conform with others in their communities, that affect achievement of their epistemic goals. Here we analyze a network epistemology model in which agents, all else…
In many two-sided markets, the parties to be matched have incomplete information about their characteristics. We consider the settings where the parties engaged are extremely patient and are interested in long-term partnerships. Hence, once…
In this paper, we make a review on the concepts of rationality across several different fields, namely in economics, psychology and evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology. We review how processes like natural selection can help us…
In the stable marriage problem, a set of men and a set of women are given, each of whom has a strictly ordered preference list over the acceptable agents in the opposite class. A matching is called stable if it is not blocked by any pair of…
We propose a simple model to explore an educational phenomenon where the correct answer emerges from group discussion. We construct our model based on several plausible assumptions: (i) We tend to follow peers' opinions. However, if a…
Indirect reciprocity is a key explanation for the exceptional magnitude of cooperation among humans. This literature suggests that a large proportion of human cooperation is driven by social norms and individuals' incentives to maintain a…