Hawks and Doves
Can game theory give us a new axiom for understanding behaviour in schools?
Overview
Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli have a brilliant new book out on Game Theory
In highlighting the hidden rationality in many apparently irrational decisions and behaviors (ie: they look at the ultimate causes of behaviour rather than the proximate causes) it has many interesting implications for how we think about behaviours (student and teacher) in school situations.
A key insight of theirs is that expected behaviour of self and others often leads to actual behaviour.
One example is their chapter on the Hawk and Dove game which predicts when conflicts over resources will occur. This may provide some clues as to new ways to understand conflicts and behaviours in schools.
Not a review
Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli have a superb new book out on Game Theory which I strongly recommend if you want to change how you think about things. Rather than review it conventionally, I’ll be picking out a series of things from it I found potentially particularly relevant for schools for individual posts. While you should definitely read the book, I also very much recommend following Moshe on Twitter, as his is one of the more interesting and thought provoking accounts on there. Returning to the book, chapter five discusses the Hawk and Dove game which seems an especially good place to start. Needless, to say any faults or misunderstandings in this post are mine alone and don’t reflect on the book in anyway.
Hawks vs Doves
One of the classic Game Theory ideas, Hawk vs Dove is simply the idea that when a resource has any value worth fighting over, there are broadly two ways to play, hawk or dove.
Strategy one: the hawks who will fight for the resource, thus incurring the risk of injury in the conflict, but could also have a chance of gaining the resource.
Strategy two: the doves who will passively accept the loss of the resource, but in doing so remain unharmed.
The resource can be anything with some value, which includes status, which probably makes this idea especially relevant to behavior management in schools, but also might have some very interesting things to say about interpersonal conflict (ie: teachers vs teachers) which in my opinion remains both understudied by academia and under-discussed by practitioners. The key insight from Moshe and Erez is that expectations are often shared and therefore become self-fulfilling in terms of what behavior comes next, and one particularly striking example of that from the chapter was the idea that the person (or group of people) in a territory first are typically expected to play hawk and get the resource. Logically, it then follows that if the expectations change or can be changed then the behavior may as well. Some possible school specific implications arising from their insight follow.
Possible implications
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes, Leviathan XIII.9
Cover teachers
While it is somewhat unlikely Thomas Hobbes’ famous quote was referring specifically to the lives of cover teachers, he may as well have been for some, and professional anecdote often has it that behavior is significantly worse for cover teachers than regular teachers. Could this be in part be explained by the Hawk Dove game? For example, with the regular teacher out and no hawk in the class the students switch from dove to hawk over their “territory” their classroom. This is especially likely to be the case if they have the expectation that cover teachers will not be able to assert themselves the way a regular teacher might. This expectation might have been (hopefully inadvertently) triggered by senior management not being seen to be as supportive of cover teachers so students feel consequences may not be applied reducing the costs of playing hawk.
Fratricidal strife
One topic that seems rarely discussed on edutwitter, and largely overlooked by researchers is interpersonal conflict between teachers. This is a shame as it seems to be especially important in shaping the work environment for a great many people. (Here I’m including not just active conflict but suppressed and unresolved conflict such as resentment towards a Hawk playing colleague.) The Hawk/Dove game has the potential to provide many insights into this, as anyone who has worked with a colleague who claimed ownership of chairs in communal staffrooms or workspaces can attest!
Suspensions and exclusions
Assuming we accept the implications of the game, then it logically follows that reducing the potential costs of playing hawk, could encourage more students to act aggressively as expectations of severe costs have been reduced. The Hawk/Dove game seems to usefully allow us to go beyond a simple model of deterrence, as the changed expectations of others behaviour will in turn lead to other changed behaviours. This then becomes another potential issue for those campaigning to eliminate suspensions and exclusions without a clear system to replace them, as the second order effects of their removal may lead to other unforeseen knock on consequences.
Explicitly teaching norms and behaviour
The idea of behaviour as a taught curriculum has gathered some traction particularly in a post-covid world where students have not had as much experience at school. The logic of the Hawk/Dove game would suggest that part of the potential power of this approach to preemptive behavior management rather than just relying on the deterrent power of consequences, is that it both establishes and reinforces behavioural expectations.
Summing up
If this blog has anything so concrete as an overarching aim, it is to look at how other related disciplines have attempted to answer some of the same questions that apply to education, especially if education hasn’t addressed them so far. With their emphasis on applying game theory to real world examples to explore ultimate rather than proximate causes of behaviour, some of the insights from Moshe and Erez’s new book seem particularly appropriate for this. In short, read the book.
Finding out more
The authors’ discuss game theory and hawk and dove specifically, from 14:30-19:45 here.
Moshe has a superb thread from a few years ago which goes into the Hawk and Dove game at some depth.
Slides from Moshe’s lecture on the Hawk and Dove game
For the history and RE teachers: @Oliver_S_Curry uses Hawk and Dove here to explain among other things, why two completely different approaches ie: warrior virtues and monk-like submission can emerge from the same cultural backdrop.
