Related papers: The pursuit of happiness
In a society of completely selfish individuals where everybody is only interested in maximizing his own payoff, does any equilibrium exist for the society? John Nash proved more than 50 years ago that an equilibrium always exists such that…
In a society of multiple individuals, if everybody is only interested in maximizing his own payoff, will there exist any equilibrium for the society? John Nash proved more than 50 years ago that an equilibrium always exists such that nobody…
Different theories posit different sources for feelings of well-being and happiness. Appraisal theory grounds our emotional responses in our goals and desires and their fulfillment, or lack of fulfillment. Self Determination theory posits…
Purely affective interaction allows the welfare of an individual to depend on her own actions and on the profile of welfare levels of others. Under an assumption on the structure of mutual affection that we interpret as "non-explosive…
We study a class of non-cooperative aggregative games -- denoted as \emph{social purpose games} -- in which the payoffs depend separately on a player's own strategy (individual benefits) and on a function of the strategy profile which is…
We study the effects of individual perceptions of payoffs in two-player games. In particular we consider the setting in which individuals' perceptions of the game are influenced by their previous experiences and outcomes. Accordingly, we…
Is it rational for selfish individuals to cooperate? The conventional answer based on analysis of games such as the Prisoners Dilemma (PD) is that it is not, even though mutual cooperation results in a better outcome for all. This…
The conflict between individual and collective interests is in the heart of every social dilemmas established by evolutionary game theory. We cannot avoid these conflicts but sometimes we may choose which interaction framework to use as a…
A selfish learner seeks to maximize their own success, disregarding others. When success is measured as payoff in a game played against another learner, mutual selfishness typically fails to produce the optimal outcome for a pair of…
In this paper, we propose a novel fairness framework grounded in the concept of happiness, a measure of the utility each group gains fromdecisionoutcomes. Bycapturingfairness through this intuitive lens, we not only offer a more…
Evolutionary game theory assumes that individuals maximize their benefits when choosing strategies. However, an alternative perspective proposes that individuals seek to maximize the benefits of others. To explore the relationship between…
A notion of pi-tolerant equilibrium is defined that takes into account that players have some tolerance regarding payoffs in a game. This solution concept generalizes Nash and refines epsilon-Nash equilibrium in a natural way. We show that…
We introduce a new measure of the discrepancy in strategic games between the social welfare in a Nash equilibrium and in a social optimum, that we call selfishness level. It is the smallest fraction of the social welfare that needs to be…
Engaging in playful activities, such as playing a musical instrument, learning a language, or performing sports, is a fundamental aspect of human life. We present a quantitative empirical analysis of the engagement dynamics into playful…
We consider two-player normal form games where each player has the same finite strategy set. The payoffs of each player are assumed to be i.i.d. random variables with a continuous distribution. We show that, with high probability, the…
It is known that individuals in social networks tend to exhibit homophily (a.k.a. assortative mixing) in their social ties, which implies that they prefer bonding with others of their own kind. But what are the reasons for this phenomenon?…
Human behavioural patterns exhibit selfish or competitive, as well as selfless or altruistic tendencies, both of which have demonstrable effects on human social and economic activity. In behavioural economics, such effects have…
Modeling personality is a challenging problem with applications spanning computer games, virtual assistants, online shopping and education. Many techniques have been tried, ranging from neural networks to computational cognitive…
The emergence of cooperation figures among the main goal of game theory in competitive-cooperative environments. Potential games have long been hinted as viable alternatives to study realistic player behavior. Here, we expand the potential…
Social dilemmas are situations in which collective welfare is at odds with individual gain. One widely studied example, due to the conflict it poses between human behaviour and game theoretic reasoning, is the Traveler's Dilemma. The…