IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v77y2013i1p168-180.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Minimax play by teams

Author

Listed:
  • Okano, Yoshitaka

Abstract

We analyze the behavior of two-person teams and individuals who repeatedly play the game with a unique mixed strategy equilibrium in the laboratory. When teams play OʼNeillʼs 4×4 game against another team, the choice frequencies are consistent with equilibrium of the game at the decision-maker level. In contrast, individuals against another individual play far from equilibrium, as previous experiments have found. The hide-and-seek game experiment reveals that teamsʼ behavior is less heterogeneous than individuals. When teams play OʼNeillʼs game against individuals, teams win at above the equilibrium rate in one treatment, but not in the other.

Suggested Citation

  • Okano, Yoshitaka, 2013. "Minimax play by teams," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 168-180.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:77:y:2013:i:1:p:168-180
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2012.10.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825612001510
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2012.10.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davis, James H., 1992. "Some compelling intuitions about group consensus decisions, theoretical and empirical research, and interpersonal aggregation phenomena: Selected examples 1950-1990," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-38, June.
    2. Mookherjee Dilip & Sopher Barry, 1994. "Learning Behavior in an Experimental Matching Pennies Game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 62-91, July.
    3. Wooders, John & Shachat, Jason M., 2001. "On the Irrelevance of Risk Attitudes in Repeated Two-Outcome Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 342-363, February.
    4. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Oscar Volij, 2008. "Experientia Docet: Professionals Play Minimax in Laboratory Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(1), pages 71-115, January.
    5. Brown, James N & Rosenthal, Robert W, 1990. "Testing the Minimax Hypothesis: A Re-examination of O'Neill's Game Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1065-1081, September.
    6. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & David H. Reiley, 2010. "What Happens in the Field Stays in the Field: Exploring Whether Professionals Play Minimax in Laboratory Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1413-1434, July.
    7. Martin G. Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2005. "The Decision Maker Matters: Individual Versus Group Behaviour in Experimental Beauty-Contest Games," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 200-223, January.
    8. Binmore, Ken & Swierzbinski, Joe & Proulx, Chris, 2001. "Does Minimax Work? An Experimental Study," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 445-464, July.
    9. David J. Cooper & John H. Kagel, 2005. "Are Two Heads Better Than One? Team versus Individual Play in Signaling Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 477-509, June.
    10. Mark Walker & John Wooders, 2001. "Minimax Play at Wimbledon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1521-1538, December.
    11. James Cox & Stephen Hayne, 2006. "Barking up the right tree: Are small groups rational agents?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(3), pages 209-222, September.
    12. repec:feb:artefa:0094 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Steven Levitt & John List & David Reiley, 2010. "What happens in the field stays in the field: Professionals do not play minimax in laboratory experiments," Artefactual Field Experiments 00080, The Field Experiments Website.
    14. P.-A. Chiappori, 2002. "Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1138-1151, September.
    15. Cason, Timothy N & Mui, Vai-Lam, 1997. "A Laboratory Study of Group Polarisation in the Team Dictator Game," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(444), pages 1465-1483, September.
    16. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2003. "Professionals Play Minimax," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 395-415.
    17. Robert W. Rosenthal & Jason Shachat & Mark Walker, 2003. "Hide and seek in Arizona," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 32(2), pages 273-293, December.
    18. Gary Bornstein & Ilan Yaniv, 1998. "Individual and Group Behavior in the Ultimatum Game: Are Groups More “Rational” Players?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 101-108, June.
    19. John Wooders, 2010. "Does Experience Teach? Professionals and Minimax Play in the Lab," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 1143-1154, May.
    20. Blinder, Alan S & Morgan, John, 2005. "Are Two Heads Better than One? Monetary Policy by Committee," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 789-811, October.
    21. Shachat, Jason M., 2002. "Mixed Strategy Play and the Minimax Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 189-226, May.
    22. Rapoport, Amnon & Boebel, Richard B., 1992. "Mixed strategies in strictly competitive games: A further test of the minimax hypothesis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 261-283, April.
    23. Shih-Hsun Hsu & Chen-Ying Huang & Cheng-Tao Tang, 2007. "Minimax Play at Wimbledon: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 517-523, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2017. "Serial correlation in National Football League play calling and its effects on outcomes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 125-132.
    2. Leonidas Spiliopoulos, 2018. "Randomization and serial dependence in professional tennis matches: Do strategic considerations, player rankings and match characteristics matter?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(5), pages 413-427, September.
    3. Geng, Sen & Peng, Yujia & Shachat, Jason & Zhong, Huizhen, 2015. "Adolescents, cognitive ability, and minimax play," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 54-58.
    4. Wang Zhijian, 2022. "Game Dynamics Structure Control by Design: an Example from Experimental Economics," Papers 2203.06088, arXiv.org.
    5. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2014. "Minimax on the gridiron: Serial correlation and its effects on outcomes in the National Football League," MPRA Paper 58907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. repec:cup:judgdm:v:13:y:2018:i:5:p:413-427 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Heifetz, Aviad & Heller, Ruth & Ostreiher, Roni, 2021. "Do Arabian babblers play mixed strategies in a “volunteer’s dilemma”?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Yoshitaka Okano, 2016. "Re-examination of team’s play in a mixed-strategy game experiment," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(8), pages 601-604, May.
    9. Zhijian Wang & Qinmei Yao & Yijia Wang, 2022. "Eigen mode selection in human subject game experiment," Papers 2204.08071, arXiv.org.
    10. Yoshitaka Okano, 2017. "Team vs. Individual, Hypothesis Testing vs. Model Selection, and the Minimax Model," Working Papers SDES-2017-18, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Oct 2017.
    11. Zhijian Wang & Shujie Zhou & Qinmei Yao & Yijia Wang, 2022. "Dynamic Structure in Four-strategy Game: Theory and Experiment," Papers 2203.14669, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2017. "Serial correlation in National Football League play calling and its effects on outcomes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 125-132.
    2. Duffy, Sean & Naddeo, JJ & Owens, David & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and mixed strategies: On brains and minimax," MPRA Paper 71878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2014. "Minimax on the gridiron: Serial correlation and its effects on outcomes in the National Football League," MPRA Paper 58907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Van Essen, Matt & Wooders, John, 2015. "Blind stealing: Experience and expertise in a mixed-strategy poker experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 186-206.
    5. Romain Gauriot & Lionel Page & John Wooders, 2016. "Nash at Wimbledon: Evidence from Half a Million Serves," QuBE Working Papers 046, QUT Business School.
    6. Romain Gauriot & Lionel Page & John Wooders, 2016. "Nash at Wimbledon: Evidence from Half a Million Serves," QuBE Working Papers 046, QUT Business School.
    7. Yoshitaka Okano, 2016. "Re-examination of team’s play in a mixed-strategy game experiment," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(8), pages 601-604, May.
    8. Jung S You, 2021. "Random Actions in Experimental Zero-Sum Games," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 13(1), pages 69-81.
    9. Spiliopoulos, Leonidas, 2013. "Beyond fictitious play beliefs: Incorporating pattern recognition and similarity matching," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 69-85.
    10. Leonidas Spiliopoulos, 2018. "Randomization and serial dependence in professional tennis matches: Do strategic considerations, player rankings and match characteristics matter?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(5), pages 413-427, September.
    11. repec:cup:judgdm:v:13:y:2018:i:5:p:413-427 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Thomas Dohmen & Hendrik Sonnabend, 2018. "Further Field Evidence for Minimax Play," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(3), pages 371-388, April.
    13. Jason Shachat & J. Todd Swarthout & Lijia Wei, 2011. "Man versus Nash An experiment on the self-enforcing nature of mixed strategy equilibrium," Working Papers 1101, Xiamen Unversity, The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Finance and Economics Experimental Laboratory, revised 21 Feb 2011.
    14. Friedman, Daniel & Zhao, Shuchen, 2021. "When are mixed equilibria relevant?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 51-65.
    15. Spiliopoulos, Leonidas, 2012. "Pattern recognition and subjective belief learning in a repeated constant-sum game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 921-935.
    16. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & David H. Reiley, 2010. "What Happens in the Field Stays in the Field: Exploring Whether Professionals Play Minimax in Laboratory Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1413-1434, July.
    17. Spenkuch, Jörg, 2014. "Backward Induction in the Wild: Evidence from the U.S. Senate," MPRA Paper 58766, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Charles Noussair & Marc Willinger, 2011. "Mixed strategies in an unprofitable game: an experiment," Working Papers 11-19, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Nov 2011.
    19. Baethge, Caroline, 2016. "Performance in the beauty contest: How strategic discussion enhances team reasoning," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-17-16, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    20. Heifetz, Aviad & Heller, Ruth & Ostreiher, Roni, 2021. "Do Arabian babblers play mixed strategies in a “volunteer’s dilemma”?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    21. Wolfgang Luhan & Martin Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2009. "Group polarization in the team dictator game reconsidered," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(1), pages 26-41, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Team vs. individual decision making; Minimax; Heterogeneity; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:77:y:2013:i:1:p:168-180. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.