The norm of non-use

Re-reading Schelling's Micromotives and Macrobehavior...the last chapter is a version of his Nobel acceptance speech on how a norm of non-use of nuclear weapons has developed over the lastr sixty years.

The norm Schelling refers to can be operationalized: We can call it shame that reduces the payoffs of a player who uses nuclear weapons when the other does not by the amount that the other loses from one's decision to use nuclear weapons.  Below are two matrices: The one on the left assumes egoism, while the one on the right assumes shame applies.

                       USE-NO USE--EGO                         USE-NO USE--SHAME

              Use                    No Use                    Use                        No Use      

Use       -10, -10                 1, -15                 -10, -10                   -14, -15 

 

No Use   -15, 1                       0, 0                -15, -14                       0, 0

The game with egoistic players is a prisoner's dilemma, with using nuclear weapons as the dominant strategy and the only equilibrium.  The game with shame is a stag hunt, with no dominant strategy; in that game both use, use and no-use, no-use as well as a mixed strategy are equilibria. 

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