How much is convenient to defect? A method to estimate the cooperation probability in Prisoner's Dilemma and other games (1404.2306v1)

Abstract: In many cases the Nash equilibria are not predictive of the experimental players' behaviour. For some games of Game Theory it is proposed here a method to estimate the probabilities with which the different options will be actually chosen by balanced players, i.e. players that are neither too competitive, nor too cooperative. This will allow to measure the intrinsec cooperativeness degree of a game, only in function of its payoffs. The method is shaped on the Prisoner's Dilemma, then generalized for asymmetric tables, N players and N options. It is adapted to other conditions like Chicken Game, Battle of the Sexes, Stag Hunt and Translators (a new name proposed for a particular condition). Then the method is applied to other games like Diner's Dilemma, Public Goods Game, Traveler's Dilemma and War of Attrition. These games are so analyzed in a probabilistic way that is consistent to what we could expect intuitively, overcoming some known paradoxes of the Game Theory.