An approach in mathematics, originally devised by John von Neumann (1903-1957) among others, drawing on statistics, economics and psychology, to understand how people or organizations make strategic decisions so as to maximise gains and to minimise losses relative to competitors. Such decision making involves what are called zero-sum games (i.e., one player’s gain is another’s loss). Later, non-zero sum games were added to the theory: ones in which neither player would want to change his strategy given that of the other as the outcome would be worse for both of them, thus eventuating in cooperation rather than competition. The theory has had wide applications, including the study of survival strategies in evolutionary biology and cross-cultural comparisons of children’s games and play in anthropology
See Cognitive psychology, Executive function (EF), Games, Morality, Play