Symmetry Breaking
In both "Chicken" and "Hawk-Dove", the only symmetric Nash equilibrium is the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, where both individuals randomly chose between playing Hawk/Straight or Dove/Swerve. This mixed strategy equilibrium is often sub-optimal—both players would do better if they could coordinate their actions in some way. This observation has been made independently in two different contexts, with almost identical results.
Read more about this topic: Chicken (game)
Famous quotes containing the words symmetry and/or breaking:
“What makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and artificial symmetry of their position and movements.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)