You can’t always know what’s going to happen. Real-life can be chaotic, and lots of things happen that don’t seem to make any sense. We generally use probability to understand the world around us to judge what is likely to happen and what isn’t likely to happen. It’s the ability to understand and predict an outcome. Probability is a mathematical term used to talk about the likelihood of something happening. Most women therefore wear makeup and what we end up with is a situation that is not ideal for the whole or for the individuals, but is based on rational choices by each individual. Your beauty relative to what is perceived as average would decrease. Not wearing makeup means foregoing the artificial enhancement to beauty. Once a critical mass wears makeup, the average facade of female beauty is artificially made greater. However, if no one wore makeup, there would be great temptation for any one woman to gain an advantage over others by breaking the norm and using mascara, blush, and concealer to hide imperfections and enhance her natural beauty. Foregoing makeup would free up fifteen to thirty minutes for each woman every morning. Each day across America, several million woman-hours are devoted to an activity with questionable benefit for society. Take, for example, the issue of women wearing make-up. The prisoner’s dilemma can be applied to many other social situations, too, from political science to law to psychology to advertising. Repeated games: The play of the game is repeated with the same players.

For example, tipping a waiter on your vacation. Here, the players are likely to not know much about each other. One-shot games: The play of the game occurs only once.For example, in chess or in bargaining/negotiating situations, the player must look ahead in order to know what action to choose now. Sequential move games: Players choose their actions in a particular sequence.For example, in the Prisoner’s Dilemma (see below), each player must anticipate what their opponent is doing at that moment, recognizing that the opponent is doing the same. Simultaneous move games: Players choose actions simultaneously.For example, when both players choose “don’t confess” in Prisoner’s Dilemma (see below). Non-zero sum game: The players’ interests are not always in direct conflict, so that there are opportunities for both to gain.If a win equals +1 and a loss equals -1, the sum is zero. For example, in football, one team wins and the other team loses. Zero-sum game: The players’ interests are in direct conflict with one another.

Real life uses for game theory