Reputation and the Evolution of Conflict

The outcomes of conflicts in many human societies generate reputation effects that influence the nature of later conflicts. Those willing to escalate over even trivial offenses are considered honorable whereas those who do not are considered dishonorable (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996). Here I extend Maynard Smithʹs hawk–dove model of animal conflict to explore the logic of a strategy which uses reputation about its opponents to regulate its behavior. I show that a reputation-based strategy does well when (1) the value of the resource is large relative to the cost of losing a fight, (2) communities are stable, and (3) reputations are well known but subject to some amount of error. Reputation-based strategies may thus result in greater willingness to fight, but less fighting at equilibrium, depending upon the nature of the contests and the local socioecology. Additionally, this strategy is robust in the presence of poor knowledge about reputation.