PLAYING AN N-PERSON GAME, AN EXPERIMENT.
Abstract
The author attempted in this paper to provide explanations for the various outcomes of an experiment designed to study how coalitions are formed in human relations. Although the bargaining set alone did not suffice to explain the outcomes for many types of games, by incorporating other ideas with the bargaining set theory, it is felt a more or less satisfactory solution can reached. Thus, the present analysis contains several conjectures which can be tested by statistical methods. In addition, the outcomes exhibit interesting features which deserve further theoretical and experimental study. It seems that standards of fairness which may exist among various groups must needs be taken into account when a game is to be described by a characteristic function. Also, it becomes fairly clear that a normative analysis of playing a game should take into consideration changes in the characteristic function (and in the set of active players) which result from intermediate agreements. Thus one can see, on the one hand, that game theoretical tools may be used to describe human behavior and, on the other, that more topics will have to be evolved in game theory before a satisfactory approximation to real situations can be achieved.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 1965
- Accession Number
- AD0613034
Entities
People
- Michael Maschler
Organizations
- Princeton University