Game Theory Applications: Navigating Strategic Decisions

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Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.

1. 28 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   Corrected six factual and attribution errors: the 1950 Flood-Dresher experiment was a 100-round repeated game with frequent cooperation, not one-shot mutual defection; Nash's existence theorem guarantees an equilibrium only when mixed (randomized) strategies are allowed (pure equilibria are not guaranteed); the 1973 Nature ESS result is due to Maynard Smith and Price, with Dawkins's role being later popularization (1976); the Nash bargaining solution maximizes the product of gains over disagreement payoffs rather than yielding a split proportional to relative improvement over outside options; trembling-hand perfection is Selten's (Harsanyi's contribution was games of incomplete information); and the Henrich et al. 2001 study covered fifteen small-scale societies with substantial variation, not dozens of cultures with a regular 20-30% rejection rule.

   What the page claimed

   The article stated that neither Flood-Dresher player cooperated, that every finite game has a Nash equilibrium (without the mixed-strategy condition), that Dawkins/Maynard Smith/Price showed ESS in 1973, that Nash bargaining predicts a proportional surplus split, that Harsanyi developed trembling-hand perfection, and that Henrich et al. studied dozens of cultures establishing regular rejection below 20-30%.

   What was corrected

   Corrected each to the established record: repeated-game cooperation in Flood-Dresher; mixed-strategy condition on Nash existence; Maynard Smith and Price for the 1973 ESS paper with Dawkins as later populariser; product-maximization for Nash bargaining; Selten for trembling-hand perfection; and fifteen small-scale societies with substantial variation for Henrich et al. 2001.

   Why: These are verifiable errors of historical result, mathematical characterization, authorship, and study scope, corrected against the primary literature rather than by substituting new unverified sources.

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2. 11 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   Correct name (John Maynard Keynes) and attribution: Keynes gave the metaphor; the formal p-beauty contest game is due to Moulin, tested by Nagel.

   Before

   The p-beauty contest experiment, designed by economist John Keynes and tested extensively by Nagel (1995)

   After

   The p-beauty contest experiment, inspired by the beauty-contest metaphor of economist John Maynard Keynes, formally introduced as a game by Herve Moulin (1986), and tested extensively by Nagel (1995)

   Why: Verified live: the correction was already applied to the article body exactly as suggested, and the FAQ/excerpt/meta fields contained no leftover reference to the fabrication. No further action needed.

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