This book, first published in 1991, offers an integrative approach to the study of formal models in the social and behavioural sciences. The theory presented here unifies both the representation of the social environment and the equilibrium concept. The theory requires that all alternatives that are available to the players be specified in an explicit and detailed manner, and this specification is defined as a social 'situation'. A situation, therefore, not only consists of the alternatives currently available to the players, (...) but also includes the set of opportunities that might be induced by the players from their current environment. The theory requires that all recommended alternatives be both internally and externally stable; the recommendation cannot be self-defeating and, at the same time, should account for alternatives that were not recommended. In addition to unifying the representation and the solution concept, the theory also extends the social environments accommodated by current game theory. (shrink)

The paper points out that in dynamic games a player may be better-off if other players do not know his choice of strategy. That is, a player may benefit by not revealing (or not pre-determining) the choice of his action in an information set he (thereby) hopes will not be reached. He would be better-off by exercising his ``right to remain silent'' if he believes –- as the empirical evidence shows –- that players display aversion to ``Knightian uncertainty''. In this (...) case, a player who behaves strategically, may wish to avoid revealing his strategy. This is true under various interpretations of the notion of ``strategy profiles''. (shrink)