Coordinating cooperation in stag-hunt game: Emergence of evolutionarily stable procedural rationality

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in stag-hunt games, bounded rationality and procedural rationality can lead to stable cooperation through evolutionary processes, favoring less rational strategies over more rational ones.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of procedural rationality in evolutionary game theory, showing its stability and role in fostering cooperation in stag-hunt scenarios.

Findings

Bounded rational players can form evolutionarily stable cooperation.

Less rational strategies can outcompete more rational ones in coordination games.

Evolutionary forces favor procedural rationality in cooperative settings.

Abstract

Humans are bounded rational at best and this, we argue, has worked in their favour in the hunter-gatherer society where emergence of a coordinated action, leading to cooperation, is otherwise the standard stag-hunt dilemma (when individuals are rational). In line with the fact the humans strive for developing self-reputation by having less propensity to cheat than to be cheated, we observe that the payoff structure of the stag-hunt game appropriately modifies to that of coordination-II game. Subsequently, within the paradigm of evolutionary game theory, we establish that a population -- consisting of procedural rational players (a type of bounded rationality) -- is unequivocally evolutionarily stable against emergence of more rational strategies in coordination-II game. The cooperation is, thus, shown to have been established by evolutionary forces picking less rational individuals.