Prospect theory and its implications for adversarial decision-making

Modeling and simulation efforts depend upon accurate input to create viable representations and useful output information. When modeling human behavior, the challenge is often rationalizing sometimes irrational decisions. An existing cognitive model, prospect theory, has provided decades of research and insight into how relativistic differences and decision framing can significantly impact the decision-making process. If applied to security modeling and simulation, these findings can help predict differences in human behavior, which often differs significantly with regard to optimal decision-making or resource allocation strategies. The discussion presented here begins with some basic background for prospect theory and several existing attempts to incorporate these principles into modeling and simulation efforts thus far. Next, a detailed discussion is provided regarding how security and adversarial personnel factor into various prospect theory roles and classifications. Perhaps counter-intuitively, prospect theory would describe security personnel as engaging in risk-seeking behavior, suicidal adversaries as engaging in risk-averse behavior, and non-suicidal adversaries as being more susceptible to decision frames and relativistic differences. The discussion further describes how and why each of these assignments are made as well as implications for future modeling and simulation efforts.