Nice guys finish first :: Wessex Scene Online

Nice guys finish first

11th June 2006
Gareth Hynes

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Surely altruism is pointless? Why, evolutionarily, would an individual ever do something in which they would lose out? Surely the result would be that a rival would be more likely to pass on their own genes?

Questions like this have long worried all sorts of academics, and only now is a new intriguing theory, called ‘game theory’, providing some answers.

A version of game theory is called the prisoner’s dilemma. The dilemma arises as two prisoners bargain for freedom. If the two ‘players’ stay quiet, both get six months in prison. If one confesses and the other doesn’t, the confessor gets off but the other gets ten years. If both confess, both get two years.

Individuals purely looking out for themselves would always confess: if his partner stays quiet he goes free; if his partner confesses he gets two years rather than ten. Logically, the best option would be to always betray your companion.

So how is this altruistic? Well, in 1984 a tournament was set up in which academics were invited to enter computer programs which would play the game against each other again and again. It was discovered that over time the best strategies were the nicest. Selfish ones lost out. The conclusion was that individuals out for themselves (like humans in evolution) would be best served by being nice; hence, nice guys finish first. And so altruism evolved.

For a long while it was thought a ‘tit for tat’ strategy was best. Then, in 2004, Southampton University came along. Sixty programs were entered designed to identify each other by certain combinations of choices, and then cooperate to give one a high score. Southampton, predictably being Southampton, won the top three positions.

In this way it was shown that although being altruistic alone is good, mutually cooperating with friends is much better.