Robert M. Axelrod

Quotes

• “What accounts for TIT FOR TAT's robust success is its combination of being nice, retaliatory, forgiving, and clear. Its niceness prevents it from getting into unnecessary trouble. Its retaliation discourages the other side from persisting whenever defection is tried. Its forgiveness helps restore mutual cooperation. And its clarity makes it intelligible to the other player, thereby eliciting long-term cooperation.”

• “The live-and-let-live system that emerged in the bitter trench warfare of World War I demonstrates that friendship is hardly necessary for cooperation based upon reciprocity to get started. Under suitable circumstances, cooperation can develop even between antagonists.”

• “The two-person iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is the E. coli of the social sciences, allowing a very large variety of studies to be undertaken in a common framework.”

• “A moral of the story is that models that aim to explore fundamental processes should be judged by their fruitfulness, not by their accuracy. For this purpose, realistic representation of many details is unnecessary and even counterproductive.”

Books by Robert M. Axelrod in order

Books by Robert M. Axelrod in the order they were published, from Bureaucratic Decisionmaking in the Military Assistance Program (1968) to Harnessing Complexity (1999).

1. 1Bureaucratic Decisionmaking in the Military Assistance ProgrBureaucratic Decisionmaking in the Military Assistance Program1968
2. 2Conflict of InterestConflict of Interest1970
3. 3Framework for a General Theory of Cognition and ChoiceFramework for a General Theory of Cognition and Choice1972
4. 4Argumentation in Foreign Policy Decision MakingArgumentation in Foreign Policy Decision Making1976
5. 5Structure of DecisionStructure of Decision1976
6. 6The Evolution of CooperationThe Evolution of Cooperation1984
7. 7Comment réussir dans un monde d'égoïstesComment réussir dans un monde d'égoïstes1996
8. 8The Complexity of CooperationThe Complexity of Cooperation1997
9. 9Harnessing ComplexityHarnessing Complexity1999