Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ken Binmore: Behavioral Scientist

  • Research Paper
  • Published:
Homo Oeconomicus Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper discusses Ken Binmore’s contribution to the debate on other-regarding preferences with reference to his contributions on equilibrium selection in non-cooperative games. We first assess his claim that the experimental evidence in favor of different types of social preferences has been vastly exaggerated. Then, we compare Binmore’s contribution with some recent developments of the literature. We show that recent experimental evidence lends support to his view that subjects’ behavior is mostly driven by a combination of learning and selfishness. From a theoretical point of view, we show that Binmore’s positions foreshadowed what is today known as the Social Heuristic Hypothesis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The word “reciprocity” is used in different ways in the literature. Binmore’s variety corresponds to what is usually termed direct reciprocity and must be distinguished from strong reciprocity, which is more popular among defenders of the social preferences approach. See for example Bowles and Gintis (2013).

  2. Game theory also explains how norms emerge. I have no space in this note to address this issue.

  3. See Bicchieri (2006) for a modern view on social norms based on this approach.

  4. “A fundamental point is that biologists almost always deal with the genetic mechanism of natural selection. This mechanism admits a simple, canonical dynamical representation [...] For economists the social mechanisms of learning and imitation are usually more important than the genetic mechanism. A wide variety of learning and imitation processes are conceivable and the appropriate dynamical representation seems to be highly context-dependent.” (Friedman 1991).

  5. See Weibull (1997) and Fudenberg and Levine (1998) for early surveys of the literature and Sandholm (2010) for a more recent treatment.

  6. I take this story from Holt (2007).

  7. The literature on social preferences is huge. An early survey of the literature is contained in Camerer (2003) while Cooper and Kagel (2011) contains a more up-to-date bibliography.

  8. Binmore spells out the condition that make a good experiment as (a) The game is simple, and presented to the subjects in a user-friendly manner, (b) The subjects are paid adequately for performing well, (c) Sufficient time is available for trial-and-error learning. See for example Binmore (2007).

  9. For example, “Nobody thinks that [the Replicator Dynamics] is anywhere near adequate by itself to predict how real individuals learn” Binmore (2010).

  10. “Experimenters responded to these [...] learning papers by largely ignoring them”, (Cooper & Kagel, 2011). For a review of the literature see Chaudhuri (2011) and Fehr and Schurtenberger (2018).

  11. After an initial burst of enthusiasm for the explanations based on pure social preferences like inequity aversion or altruism, another strand of the literature emerged which stresses other motives behind subjects’ deviations from pure egoism. A prominent example in this direction is (Andreoni & Bernheim, 2009), in which pro-social behavior in experimental settings is explained in terms of a desire to preserve one’s own social image in front of an audience. This type of pro-social behavior would disappear in a truly anonymous setting. Notice that this line of research is broadly in agreement with Binmore’s position. An important difference, however, is that theoretical models of this type rely on the assumption that inexperienced subjects maximize a well-defined utility function, albeit more complex than the purely egoistic one which is common in standard economic models. Binmore instead believes that the attempt to rationalize the behavior of a subject playing a game for the first time is doomed to fail. (I thank an anonymous referee for attracting my attention on this issue.)

  12. This distinction is reminiscent of the old dichotomy between the eductive and the evolutive approach to equilibrium selection that Binmore introduced in Binmore (1987, 1988). In eductive models of equilibrium selection, e.g. in the tracing procedure introduced by Harsanyi and Selten (1988), the focus in on the way perfectly rational players would get to an equilibrium by simply thinking (assuming the pose of Rodin’s Thinker (Binmore, 1998a, p. 87)) before a simultaneous moves game is played.

  13. Axelrod’s work was crucial in the generation of the very large literature on the repeated PD. However, Binmore’s opinion was that Axelrod’s work added little to what game theorist already knew at that time. See Binmore (1998b).

  14. Binmore worked on the tradition started by Abreu and Rubinstein (1988).

  15. Holler and Klose-Ullmann (2020) contains a detailed analysis of Axelrod’s experiment and a discussion of the lessons that Axelord believed could be learned from it.

References

  • Abreu, D., & Rubinstein, A. (1988). The structure of Nash equilibrium in repeated games with finite automata. Econometrica, 56(6), 1259–1281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andreoni, J., & Bernheim, B. D. (2009). Social image and the 50–50 norm: A theoretical and experimental analysis of audience effects. Econometrica, 77(5), 1607–1636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andreozzi, L., Ploner, M., & Saral, A. S. (2020). The stability of conditional cooperation: Beliefs alone cannot explain the decline of cooperation in social dilemmas. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 13610.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Axelrod, R. (2009). The evolution of cooperation: Revised edition. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Battigalli, P., & Dufwenberg, M. (2009). Dynamic psychological games. Journal of Economic Theory, 144(1), 1–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bicchieri, C. (2006). The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of social norms. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (1998a). Game theory and the social contract, Volume 2: Just playing. The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (1998b). Review of R. Axelrod, the complexity of cooperation: Agent-based models of competition and collaboration. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 1(01).

  • Binmore, K. (1987). Modeling rational players: Part I. Economics and Philosophy, 3(2), 179–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (1988). Modeling rational players: Part II. Economics and Philosophy, 4(1), 9–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. G. (1990). Essays on the foundations of game theory. B. Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (2005). Economic man or straw man? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(6), 817818.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. G. (2005). Natural justice. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (2007). Does game theory work? The bargaining challenge (1st ed., Vol. 1). The MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (2010). Social norms or social preferences? Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, 9(2), 139–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. (2020). Crooked thinking or straight talk?: Modernizing epicurean scientific philosophy. Springer International Publishing.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K. G., & Samuelson, L. (1992). Evolutionary stability in repeated games played by finite automata. Journal of Economic Theory, 57(2), 278–305.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K., & Samuelson, L. (1994). Drift. European Economic Review, 38(3–4), 859–867.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K., & Samuelson, L. (1994). An economist’s perspective on the evolution of norms. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE) / Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, 150(1), 45–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K., & Samuelson, L. (1999). Evolutionary drift and equilibrium selection. The Review of Economic Studies, 66(2), 363–393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binmore, K., Swierzbinski, J., & Proulx, C. (2001). Does minimax work? An experimental study. The Economic Journal, 111(473), 445–464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2013). A cooperative species: Human reciprocity and its evolution. Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burton-Chellew, M. N., Mouden, E., Claire, & West, S.A. (2016). Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(5), 1291–1296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Camerer, F.C., Dreber, A., Holzmeister, F., Ho, T.-H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Nave, G., Nosek, A.B. Nosek, A.B., Pfeiffer, T., Altmejd, A., Buttrick, N., Buttrick, N., Chan, T., Chen, Y., Forsell, E., Gampa, A., Gampa, A., Heikensten, E., Hummer, L., Imai, T., Isaksson, S., Manfredi, D., Rose, J., Wagenmakers, E.-J., & Wu, H. (2018). Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. Nature Human Behaviour.

  • Camerer, C. (2003). Behavioral game theory: Experiments in strategic interaction. Princeton University Press Princeton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Capraro, V. (2019) The Dual-Process Approach to Human Sociality: A Review. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3409146 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3409146

  • Chaudhuri, A. (2011). Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: A selective survey of the literature. Experimental Economics, 14(1), 47–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, D. J., & Kagel, J. (2011). Other regarding preferences: A survey of experimental results. In J. Kagel & A. Roth (Eds.), The handbook of experimental economics (Vol. 2). Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cressman, R., & Schlag, K. H. (1998). The dynamic (In)stability of backwards induction. Journal of Economic Theory, 83(2), 260–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elster, J. (1979). Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in rationality and irrationality. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elster, J. (1989). The cement of society: A survey of social order. Studies in rationality and social change. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fehr, E., & Schurtenberger, I. (2018). Normative foundations of human cooperation. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(7), 458–468.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischbacher, U., & Gächter, S. (2010). Social preferences, beliefs, and the dynamics of free riding in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 100(1), 541–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischbacher, U., Gachter, S., & Fehr, E. (2001). Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment. Economics Letters, 71(3), 397–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, D. (1991). Evolutionary games in economics. Econometrica, 59(3), 637–666.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fudenberg, D., & Levine, D. K. (1998). The theory of learning in games. EBSCO eBook Collection. MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gale, J., Binmore, K. G., & Samuelson, L. (1995). Learning to be imperfect: The ultimatum game. Games and Economic Behavior, 8(1), 56–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gintis, H. (2011). Reply to Binmore: Social norms or social preferences? Available at http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/ReplyToBinmore.pdf

  • Gintis, H., Bowles, S., & Boyd, R. T. (2005). Moral sentiments and material interests: The foundations of cooperation in economic life. The MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harsanyi, John C., & Selten, Reinhard. (1988). A general theory of equilibrium selection in games. The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J. P., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., & Fehr, E. (2004). Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hilbe, C., Traulsen, A., & Sigmund, K. (2015). Partners or rivals? Strategies for the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. Games and Economic Behavior, 92, 41–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hofbauer, J., & Sigmund, K. (1998). Evolutionary games and population dynamics. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Holler, M. J., & Klose-Ullmann, B. (2020). Scissors and rock: Game theory for those who manage. Springer International Publishing.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Holt, C. A. (2007). Markets, games, and strategic behavior. Pearson Addison Wesley. Addison-Wesley series in economics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking. Fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ledyard, J. (1995). Public goods: A survey of experimental research. In J. Kagel & A. Roth (Eds.), Handbook of Experimental Economics. Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Press, W. H., & Dyson, F. J. (2012). Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma contains strategies that dominate any evolutionary opponent. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(26), 10409–10413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rand, D. G., Greene, J. D., & Nowak, M. A. (2012). Spontaneous giving and calculated greed. Nature, 489(Sep), EP 427.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rand, D. G., Peysakhovich, A., Kraft-Todd, G. T., Newman, G. E., Wurzbacher, O., Nowak, M. A., & Greene, J. D. (2014). Social heuristics shape intuitive cooperation. Nature Communications, 5(1), 3677.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sally, D. (1995). Conversation and cooperation in social dilemmas: A meta-analysis of experiments from 1958 to 1992. Rationality and Society, 7(1), 58–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sandholm, W. H. (2010). Population games and evolutionary dynamics. Economic learning and social evolution, The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, J. M. (1982). Evolution and the theory of games. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, R. A. (2003). ‘Learning’ with no feedback in a competitive guessing game. Games and Economic Behavior, 44(1), 134–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weibull, J. W. (1997). Evolutionary game theory. The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank Ken Binmore, Manfred J. Holler and two anonymous referees for their comments on a previous version of this note.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitá degli Studi di Trento, Trento, Italy

    Luciano Andreozzi

Authors
  1. Luciano Andreozzi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luciano Andreozzi.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Andreozzi, L. Ken Binmore: Behavioral Scientist. Homo Oecon (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-021-00117-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-021-00117-0

Keywords

JEL Classification

Search

Navigation