Team reasoning cannot be viewed as a payoff transformation

Abstract

In a recent article in this journal, Duijf claims to have proved that team reasoning can be viewed as a payoff transformation. His formalization mimics team reasoning but ignores its essential agency switch. The possibility of such a payoff transformation was never in doubt, does not imply that team reasoning can be viewed as a payoff transformation, and makes no sense in a game in which payoffs represent players’ utilities. A theorem is proved here that a simpler and more intuitive payoff transformation can mimic any theory that predicts what strategies players will choose in a well-defined game.

Classical and team reasoning in the Centipede Game

“…2 Team reasoning has been described as simply payoff modification (Duijf, 2021), which in turn has been critically challenged as incorrect (Colman, 2024).…”