Affective empathy in non-cooperative games

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Vasquez, Jorge; Weretka, Marek
• 署名单位: Smith College; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2019.10.005
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 548-564
• 关键词: Non-paternalistic preferences; Interdependent utilities; Affective empathy; Emotional contagion

摘要

In this paper, we examine strategic settings in which players have interdependent preferences. Players' utility functions depend not only on the strategy profile being played, but also on the realized utilities of other players. Thus, players' realized utilities are interdependent, capturing the psychological phenomena of affective empathy and emotional contagion. We offer a solution concept for these empathetic games and show that the set of equilibria is non-empty and, generically, finite. Motivated by psychological evidence, we then analyze sympathetic and antipathetic games. In the former, players' utilities increase in others' realized utilities, capturing unconditional friendship; in the latter, the opposite holds, resembling hostility. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.