Risk taking in adversarial situations: Civilization differences in chess experts

Chassy, Philippe and Gobet, Fernand (2014) Risk taking in adversarial situations: Civilization differences in chess experts. Cognition, 141. pp. 36-40. ISSN 0010-0277

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Abstract

The projections of experts in politics predict that a new world order will emerge within two decades. Being multipolar, this world will inevitably lead to frictions where civilizations and states will have to decide whether to risk conflict. Very often these decisions are informed if not taken by experts. To estimate risk-taking across civilizations, we examined strategies used in 667,599 chess games played over eleven years by chess experts from 11 different civilizations. We show that some civilizations are more inclined to settle for peace. Similarly, we show that once engaged in the battle, the level of risk taking varies significantly across civilizations, the boldest civilization using the riskiest strategy about 35% more than the most conservative civilization. We discuss which psychological factors might underpin these civilizational differences.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Cognition. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in COGNITION, 141, (August 2015), DOI# doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.04.008
Keywords:	risk, strategy, congition, chess, expertise
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Philippe Chassy
Date Deposited:	10 Jul 2015 14:39
Last Modified:	29 Sep 2016 13:44
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/450

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