Chicken (game) - Popular Versions

Popular Versions

The game of chicken models two drivers, both headed for a single lane bridge from opposite directions. The first to swerve away yields the bridge to the other. If neither player swerves, the result is a costly deadlock in the middle of the bridge, or a potentially fatal head-on collision. It is presumed that the best thing for each driver is to stay straight while the other swerves (since the other is the "chicken" while a crash is avoided). Additionally, a crash is presumed to be the worst outcome for both players. This yields a situation where each player, in attempting to secure his best outcome, risks the worst.

The phrase game of chicken is also used as a metaphor for a situation where two parties engage in a showdown where they have nothing to gain, and only pride stops them from backing down. Bertrand Russell famously compared the game of Chicken to nuclear brinkmanship:

Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the Governments of East and West have adopted the policy which Mr. Dulles calls 'brinkmanship'. This is a policy adapted from a sport which, I am told, is practiced by some youthful degenerates. This sport is called 'Chicken!'. It is played by choosing a long straight road with a white line down the middle and starting two very fast cars towards each other from opposite ends. Each car is expected to keep the wheels of one side on the white line. As they approach each other, mutual destruction becomes more and more imminent. If one of them swerves from the white line before the other, the other, as he passes, shouts 'Chicken!', and the one who has swerved becomes an object of contempt. As played by irresponsible boys, this game is considered decadent and immoral, though only the lives of the players are risked. But when the game is played by eminent statesmen, who risk not only their own lives but those of many hundreds of millions of human beings, it is thought on both sides that the statesmen on one side are displaying a high degree of wisdom and courage, and only the statesmen on the other side are reprehensible. This, of course, is absurd. Both are to blame for playing such an incredibly dangerous game. The game may be played without misfortune a few times, but sooner or later it will come to be felt that loss of face is more dreadful than nuclear annihilation. The moment will come when neither side can face the derisive cry of 'Chicken!' from the other side. When that moment is come, the statesmen of both sides will plunge the world into destruction.

Brinkmanship involves the introduction of an element of uncontrollable risk: even if all players act rationally in the face of risk, uncontrollable events can still trigger the catastrophic outcome. In the "chickie run" scene from the film Rebel Without a Cause, this happens when Buzz cannot escape from the car and dies in the crash. The opposite scenario occurs in Footloose where Ren McCormack is stuck in his tractor and hence wins the game as he can't play "chicken". The basic game-theoretic formulation of Chicken has no element of variable, potentially catastrophic, risk, and is also the contraction of a dynamic situation into a one-shot interaction.

The hawk-dove version of the game imagines two players (animals) contesting an indivisible resource who can choose between two strategies, one more escalated than the other. They can use threat displays (play Dove), or physically attack each other (play Hawk). If both players choose the Hawk strategy, then they fight until one is injured and the other wins. If only one player chooses Hawk, then this player defeats the Dove player. If both players play Dove, there is a tie, and each player receives a payoff lower than the profit of a hawk defeating a dove.