Stag Hunt, explained.
The Stag Hunt is a coordination game in which mutual cooperation offers a valuable payoff, but a safer individual choice can be preferable when cooperation is uncertain.
Why it happens
The obstacle is confidence about the other person's action. Unlike a Prisoner's Dilemma, cooperating can be the best response to cooperation. Several stable outcomes may exist, and the group can remain at the less rewarding one.
In an assurance game, cooperation is attractive when others cooperate. A safe alternative can keep both people in a less valuable outcome.
Read the result
Compare each action against both possible opponent actions. Change the expected chance of cooperation and find where the preferred action changes. The threshold depends on the specified payoffs.
A worked example
Two teams adopt a shared standard
Both teams gain most if they adopt compatible tools together, while unilateral adoption is costly.
Each can remain with a familiar tool that provides a smaller but more dependable benefit.
Clear commitments and evidence of joint adoption can make the shared improvement easier to coordinate.
OPTIONAL DEEPER DETAILGo deeper: inside the model
Inside this model
Joint/joint pays R to each. Joint/solo pays 0 and 3; solo/joint pays 3 and 0; solo/solo pays 3 each. The joint action has expected payoff pR; solo pays 3. Best-response cells mark pure Nash equilibria, allowing ties.
Where this idea is useful
A practical use
Two firms may both benefit from adopting a compatible standard, yet each may wait for assurance that the other will invest.
A common misconception
“Cooperation is individually irrational in every social dilemma.”
In a Stag Hunt, cooperation is attractive when the other player cooperates. Uncertainty about coordination creates the tension.
What this explanation leaves out
- The opponent uses a fixed independent probability and does not learn. Payoffs are fictional and the model does not represent all trust relationships.
How is Stag Hunt different from the Prisoner's Dilemma?
Defection is individually dominant in a standard one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma. In Stag Hunt, the best response changes with the other player's action, making assurance and coordination central.
Would you choose the shared goal if you knew the other person would commit?
Further reading
Explore the original research or the teaching reference behind this experiment.