Tit for Tat

While writing an email today, I needed an expression to describe a type of reciprocal relationship. Spinning through the old (and getting older) memory banks, the expression "Tit for Tat" popped up. Even though my pattern matching gray matter signaled a match, it struck me that I really didn't know what this expression meant.




Tit for tat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tit for tat is a highly effective strategy in game theory for the iterated prisoner's dilemma. It was first introduced by Anatol Rapoport in Robert Axelrod's two tournaments, held around 1980. Based on the English saying meaning "equivalent retaliation" ("tit for tat"), an agent using this strategy will initially cooperate, then respond in kind to an opponent's previous action. If the opponent previously was cooperative, the agent is cooperative. If not, the agent is not. This is similar to reciprocal altruism in biology.

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