Fatal Attraction: Focality, Naivete, and Sophistication in Experimental "Hide-and-Seek" Games

Abstract

Hide-and-Seek games are zero-sum two-person games in which one player wins by matching the other's decision and the other wins by mismatching. Although such games are often played on cultural or geographic landscapes that frame decisions non-neutrally, equilibrium ignores such framing. This paper reconsiders the results of experiments by Rubinstein, Tversky, and others whose designs model non-neutral landscapes, in which subjects deviated systematically from equilibrium in response to them. Comparing alternative explanations theoretically and econometrically suggests that the deviations are best explained by a structural non-equilibrium model of initial responses based on level-k thinking, suitably adapted to non-neutral landscapes.