An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) is a strategy that is impermeable when adopted by a population in adaptation to a specific environment, that is to say it cannot be displaced by an alternative strategy which may be novel or initially rare. Introduced by John Maynard Smith and George R. Price in 1972/3, it is an important concept in behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology, mathematical game theory and economics, with applications in other fields such as anthropology, philosophy and political science.
The prisoner's dilemma is a game analyzed in game theory. It is a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("defect") for individual reward.
In game theory, the Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Nash, is the most common way to define the solution of a non-cooperative game involving two or more players. In a Nash equilibrium, each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no one has anything to gain by changing only one's own strategy. The principle of Nash equilibrium dates back to the time of Cournot, who in 1838 applied it to competing firms choosing outputs.
The game of chicken, also known as the hawk–dove game or snowdrift game, is a model of conflict for two players in game theory. The principle of the game is that while the ideal outcome is for one player to yield, the individuals try to avoid it out of pride for not wanting to look like a "chicken". Each player taunts the other to increase the risk of shame in yielding. However, when one player yields, the conflict is avoided, and the game is for the most part over.
The suffix -ess appended to English words makes a female form of the word.
Evolutionary game theory (EGT) is the application of game theory to evolving populations in biology. It defines a framework of contests, strategies, and analytics into which Darwinian competition can be modelled. It originated in 1973 with John Maynard Smith and George R. Price's formalisation of contests, analysed as strategies, and the mathematical criteria that can be used to predict the results of competing strategies.
Professor Geoffrey Alan Parker FRS is an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Liverpool and the 2008 recipient of the Darwin Medal. Parker has been called “the professional’s professional”.
In game theory, a solution concept is a formal rule for predicting how a game will be played. These predictions are called "solutions", and describe which strategies will be adopted by players and, therefore, the result of the game. The most commonly used solution concepts are equilibrium concepts, most famously Nash equilibrium.
Evolution and the Theory of Games is a book by the British evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith on evolutionary game theory. The book was initially published in December 1982 by Cambridge University Press.
A pack hunter or social predator is a predatory animal which hunts its prey by working together with other members of its species. Normally animals hunting in this way are closely related, and with the exceptions of chimpanzees where only males normally hunt, all individuals in a family group contribute to hunting. When hunting cooperation is across two or more species, the broader term cooperative hunting is commonly used.
A population can be described as being in an evolutionarily stable state when that population's "genetic composition is restored by selection after a disturbance, provided the disturbance is not too large". This population as a whole can be either monomorphic or polymorphic. This is now referred to as convergent stability.
In game theory an uncorrelated asymmetry is an arbitrary asymmetry in a game which is otherwise symmetrical. The name 'uncorrelated asymmetry' is due to John Maynard Smith who called payoff relevant asymmetries in games with similar roles for each player 'correlated asymmetries'.
The Bishop–Cannings theorem is a theorem in evolutionary game theory. It states that (i) all members of a mixed evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) have the same payoff, and (ii) that none of these can also be a pure ESS. The usefulness of the results comes from the fact that they can be used to directly find ESSes algebraically, rather than simulating the game and solving it by iteration.
In game theory, the war of attrition is a dynamic timing game in which players choose a time to stop, and fundamentally trade off the strategic gains from outlasting other players and the real costs expended with the passage of time. Its precise opposite is the pre-emption game, in which players elect a time to stop, and fundamentally trade off the strategic costs from outlasting other players and the real gains occasioned by the passage of time. The model was originally formulated by John Maynard Smith; a mixed evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) was determined by Bishop & Cannings. An example is a second price all-pay auction, in which the prize goes to the player with the highest bid and each player pays the loser's low bid.
Phenoptosis, the term was proposed by V.P. Skulachev in 1999. It signifies the phenomenon of programmed death of an organism, i.e. that an organism's genes include features that under certain circumstances will cause the organism to rapidly degenerate and die off. Recently this has been referred to as "fast phenoptosis" as aging is being explored as "slow phenoptosis". Phenoptosis is a common feature of living species, whose ramifications for humans is still being explored. The concept of programmed cell death was used before, by Lockshin & Williams in 1964 in relation to insect tissue development, around eight years before "apoptosis" was coined.
Hobart Peyton Young is an American game theorist and economist known for his contributions to evolutionary game theory and its application to the study of institutional and technological change, as well as the theory of learning in games. He is currently centennial professor at the London School of Economics, James Meade Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Oxford, professorial fellow at Nuffield College Oxford, and research principal at the Office of Financial Research at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In game theory an evolutionarily stable set, sometimes referred to as evolutionary stable sets, is a set of strategies, which score equally against each other, each of which would be an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) were it not for the other members of the set. ES sets were first defined by Thomas (1985ab).
In game theory, Mertens stability is a solution concept used to predict the outcome of a non-cooperative game. A tentative definition of stability was proposed by Elon Kohlberg and Jean-François Mertens for games with finite numbers of players and strategies. Later, Mertens proposed a stronger definition that was elaborated further by Srihari Govindan and Mertens. This solution concept is now called Mertens stability, or just stability.
An alternative mating strategy is a strategy used by male or female animals, often with distinct phenotypes, that differs from the prevailing mating strategy of their sex. Such strategies are diverse and variable both across and within species. Animal sexual behaviour and mate choice directly affect social structure and relationships in many different mating systems, whether monogamous, polygamous, polyandrous, or polygynous. Though males and females in a given population typically employ a predominant reproductive strategy based on the overarching mating system, individuals of the same sex often use different mating strategies. Among some reptiles, frogs and fish, large males defend females, while small males may use sneaking tactics to mate without being noticed.
Reciprocal altruism in humans refers to an individual behavior that gives benefit conditionally upon receiving a returned benefit, which draws on the economic concept – ″gains in trade″. Human reciprocal altruism would include the following behaviors : helping patients, the wounded, and the others when they are in crisis; sharing food, implement, knowledge.
