Game Theory Blogs Archives | Marriage & Divorce

Why Game Theory?

Why do people do stupid things? In our recent book, Game Theory and the Transformation of Family Law, Attorney Allan Koritzinsky and I suggest a bargaining process founded on game theory. But why game theory? Game theory is a branch of mathematics that analyzes how and why people make the choices that they make. Although it had […]

People are Rational and Generally Make Good Choices: But They Can Be Tricked: Ten Tricks in the Traditional Family Law System

by Kenneth Waldron

Yes! You might remember Monty Hall and “The Price is Right”. At end the of the show, the contestant who had won the most money was shown three doors, behind two of which were some cheap junk but behind one was a big prize – maybe a fancy car. They were to choose a door […]

The Psychological Importance of Prevailing

by Kenneth Waldron

Why do we like to win, whether it is a tennis match or an argument with our spouse? Natural selection favored those who survived and reproduced. One of the ways that humans survived, and thus were able to reproduce, was to prevail. Prevailing meant finding food, warding off predators and winning battles over resources with […]

Trick #2

by Kenneth Waldron

“What custody schedule do you want?” In a prior blog, we noted that this is a trick question because it distracts people from their life goals and focuses them on legal outcomes, as though they are goals. It is also a trick question because it reframes a non-zero sum game into a zero sum game. […]

Trick #3

by Kenneth Waldron

“The other side wants . . .!” In prior blogs we focused on the fact that while people are rational, they can be tricked and on two of the tricks in the traditional family law legal system: legal outcomes are goals; and divorce is a zero sum game. The third trick is convincing people that […]

Trick #4

by Kenneth Waldron

In prior articles, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through parental separations and divorce. We next began to focus on how the legal system begins to trick people into self-defeating patterns […]

Trick #5

by Kenneth Waldron

In prior articles, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through parental separations and divorce. We next focused on how the legal system begins to trick people into self-defeating patterns of decision […]

Trick #7

by Kenneth Waldron

In prior articles, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through parental separations and divorce. We next focused on how the legal system begins to trick people into self-defeating patterns of decision […]

Trick #8

by Kenneth Waldron

In prior articles, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through separations and divorce. We next focused on how the legal system begins to trick people into self-defeating patterns of decision making: […]

Trick #9

by Kenneth Waldron

In prior articles, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through separations and divorce. We next focused on how the legal system begins to trick people into self-defeating patterns of decision making: […]