Concept · Decision-Making Mental Models
Game Theory
Origin: von Neumann & Morgenstern
Biological Parallel
Every interaction in biology is a game where payoffs depend on others' strategies. When a hawk encounters a dove over food, the outcome depends on both strategies: hawk vs hawk = costly fight, hawk vs dove = hawk wins, dove vs dove = share. These aren't metaphorical games—they're mathematical models (Hawk-Dove game, Prisoner's Dilemma) that predict stable behavioral strategies across species. Game theory works in biology because natural selection is the ultimate strategy optimizer, running millions of iterations until only winning strategies persist.