Evolutionary stability of discrimination under observability

Abstract

We study the evolution of preferences under perfect and almost perfect observability in symmetric 2-player games. We demonstrate that if nature can choose from a sufficiently general preference space, i.e. preferences over outcomes that may depend on the opponent's preference-type, then, in most games, only discriminating preferences (treating different types of opponents differently in the same situation) can be evolutionary stable and some discriminating types are stable in a very strong sense in all games. We use these discriminating types to show that any symmetric outcome which gives players more than their minmax value in material payoffs (fitness) can be seen as equilibrium play of a player population with such strongly stable preferences.

Keywords: evolution of preferences, stability, observability, discrimination

JEL Classification: C72, C73