#Insync log in full

Analysis of past conflicts also lends itself to ease of understanding since the fog of war has cleared and the outcome has been determined. The goal of hypergame analysis is to provide insight into real-world situations that are often more complex than a game where the choices of strategy present themselves as obvious.Īfter its introduction, hypergame theory was used to model past military conflicts, which are prone to having misperceptions and missing information in the process of their unfolding, to show how the outcomes were achieved. This creates many different game models that are examined for the solution to be obtained. Figuring out what strategy a player will use is dependent upon not only his or her observation of the game, but also how that player believes their opponent is viewing the game. A different game model can represent each player’s view of the conflict, but often the player’s views will overlap where common knowledge exists. Hypergame analysis extends game theory by providing the larger game that is really being played whether or not both players are aware of it. This advance in game theory shows how one player can believe that decisions of the other player are irrational, but the opponent is actually making a rational decision based upon the perceived game model. It seeks to explain how players in a game can have differing views of the conflict. The term hypergame was coined by Bennett in 1977. Hypergame theory is an extension of game theory that addresses the kind of conflict games where misperception exists. Instead, models rely heavily on probability distributions to determine the preferred outcome. Problems decision theory tries to answer include the following: “shall I bring an umbrella today?” or “I am looking for a house to buy shall I buy this one?” Decision theoretic models often fail to model the notion of fear, where another player may be able to outmaneuver during game play. The main influence behind the creation of decision theory is the rational behavior of the decision-maker.

#Insync log in full

When one or more players lack a full understanding or have a misunderstanding or incorrect view of the nature of the conflict, hypergame theory can be used to model the conflict.ĭecision theory on the other hand is concerned with goal-directed behavior when options exist with different possible outcomes. Game theory models have many properties associated with them that influence the outcome and how game analysis proceeds but often fail to model the situation when one player has an advantage over the other in a conflict. The main influence behind the creation of game theory is the resolution of such competitions. Game theory has been used to model diverse areas such as economics, natural selection, battles in past wars, and many other types of conflict. ” The study of how decision-makers interact during a conflict is known as game theory, while the study of how decision-makers make rational decisions is known as decision theory. “A conflict is a situation in which there is a ‘condition of opposition’, and parties with opposing goals affect one another. This paper explores the current research in hypergame theory and presents a broad overview of the historical literature on hypergame theory. The hypergame model more accurately provides solutions for complex theoretic modeling of conflicts than those modeled by game theory and excels where perception or information differences exist between players. The ability to outmaneuver an opponent occurs in the hypergame because the different views (perception or deception) of opponents are captured in the model, through the incorporation of information unknown to other players (misperception or intentional deception). Hypergame theory extends the advantages of game theory by allowing a player to outmaneuver an opponent and obtaining a more preferred outcome with a higher utility. A metagame, known as a hypergame, occurs when one player does not know or fully understand all the strategies of a game. To date, game theory and decision theory have received considerable modeling focus, while hypergame theory has not. When dealing with conflicts, game theory and decision theory can be used to model the interactions of the decision-makers.