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Towards a Theory of Deception

Jehiel, Philippe; Ettinger, David (2007-07), Towards a Theory of Deception. https://basepub.dauphine.fr/handle/123456789/11188

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Type
Document de travail / Working paper
Date
2007-07
Publisher
UCLA Department of Economic
Series title
Levine's Bibliography
Series number
843644000000000126
Published in
Los Angeles
Pages
27
Metadata
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Author(s)
Jehiel, Philippe
Ettinger, David
Abstract (EN)
This paper proposes an equilibrium approach to belief manipulation and deception in which agents only have coarse knowledge of their opponent s strategy. Equilibrium requires the coarse knowledge available to agents to be correct, and the inferences and optimizations to be made on the basis of the simplest theories compatible with the available knowledge. The approach can be viewed as formalizing into a game theoretic setting a well documented bias in social psychology, the Fundamental Attribution Error. It is applied to a bargaining problem, thereby revealing a deceptive tactic that is hard to explain in the full rationality paradigm.
Subjects / Keywords
Deception; Game theory; Fundamental attribution error
JEL
C72 - Noncooperative Games
D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty