Human rationality in the traverler’s dilemma and similar games

Authors

  • Rodrigo Moro Universidad Nacional del Sur
  • Esteban Freidin Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur

Abstract

In his paper of 1994, Kaushik Basu presents a game called “Traverler’s Dilemma” (TD) as a challenge to Game Theory. In effect, the solution prescribed by Game Theory goes against the intuition –agreed by experts- about what is rational to do in such a game. The experimental results show that most participants respond in a way that is consistent with such an intuition. This fact can be taken as a validation of the rationality assumption, which is omnipresent in models of human behavior, especially in Economics. We investigated whether people reallydecide in a rational manner in the context of the TD and similar games. In order to do so,
we ran a series of experimental studies we reviewed in this paper. We argue that for certain variation of the TD, there is a tendency towards irrational choices. However, this tendency is
reversed when relations between means and ends are clarified.

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Published

2014-11-04

Issue

Section

General

How to Cite

Moro, R., & Freidin, E. (2014). Human rationality in the traverler’s dilemma and similar games. Antropología Experimental, 14. https://revistaselectronicas.ujaen.es/index.php/rae/article/view/1785