# Chicken (game)
Chicken is a two-player, two-strategy game in game theory in which each player chooses between standing firm and yielding: if exactly one player stands firm, that player gets the best outcome and the yielding player gets a poor one, but if both stand firm, both get the worst outcome of all. It is also known as the hawk-dove game and, in some evolutionary contexts, the snowdrift game.[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983) The name comes from the dare in which two drivers speed toward each other on a narrow road and the first to swerve loses face; if neither swerves, both crash.[2](https://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/Games/ChickenGame.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Payoff ordering | Temptation > Reward > Sucker > Punishment (T > R > S > P): one-sided defection is best, mutual cooperation second, and mutual defection is worse than being the lone cooperator[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983) |
| Equilibria | Two pure-strategy Nash equilibria, one favoring each player, both Pareto optimal, plus one mixed-strategy equilibrium[2](https://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/Games/ChickenGame.html) |
| Other names | Hawk-dove (Maynard Smith & Price, 1973); sometimes called snowdrift[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983) • [3](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0096300317300231) |
| Strategic character | Actions are strategic substitutes: the incentive to stand firm falls as the opponent becomes more likely to stand firm[4](https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/baliga/htm/stagchick.pdf) |
| Behavioral finding | Higher cooperation rates than the prisoner's dilemma, in two-person and N-person versions[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983) |
| Signature application | Crisis bargaining, deterrence, and brinkmanship, including the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis[5](https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/glossary/chicken-game) |
## The game and its payoffs
In the standard presentation, each player picks one of two actions, often labeled swerve and straight, or cooperate and defect. A typical illustrative matrix gives each driver 1 for standing firm while the other swerves, −1 for swerving while the other stands firm, 0 when both swerve, and −100 when both stand firm.[2](https://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/Games/ChickenGame.html) In the general symmetric form, the payoffs satisfy T > R > S > P, where T is the temptation payoff from one-sided defection, R the reward for mutual cooperation, S the sucker payoff for one-sided cooperation, and P the punishment for mutual defection.[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983) A classification of two-by-two games by these four values places chicken at T ≥ R ≥ S > P.[6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-12394-z)
The single ranking difference from the prisoner's dilemma, S > P instead of P > S, changes the logic of the game. In the one-shot prisoner's dilemma, defection is a dominant strategy because both fear and greed point to it. In chicken, greed can still lead a player to defect, but fear no longer does: cooperation is the safe choice that avoids the worst possible outcome.[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983)
## Equilibria
Chicken has two pure-strategy Nash equilibria, (straight, swerve) and (swerve, straight), in which one player takes the best payoff and the other the sucker payoff. Each player prefers a different one, and both are Pareto optimal; a mixed-strategy equilibrium also exists.[2](https://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/Games/ChickenGame.html) The strategic problem is therefore coordination under conflict: each side wants to commit credibly to standing firm so that the opponent yields first.[5](https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/glossary/chicken-game)
Because the game has multiple equilibria, refinements matter. In a model with private information about hostility, chicken arises when actions are strategic substitutes, meaning each player is more inclined to stand firm the more likely the opponent is to yield; the risk-dominant equilibrium is the one in which the more hostile player is aggressive and the other backs down.[4](https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/baliga/htm/stagchick.pdf) The mixed equilibrium can be computed for specific payoff matrices; in one published example with expected payoffs (7, 2) and (2, 7) in pure equilibrium, the mixed equilibrium gives each player an expected 4 2/3, with each selecting the firm action with probability 2/3.[7](https://www.maxapress.com/data/article/ker/preview/pdf/S0269888920000351.pdf)
## Comparison with the prisoner's dilemma
Chicken and the prisoner's dilemma share the top of the payoff ranking, T > R, so one-sided defection is best and mutual cooperation second in both. They differ only in the ordering of S and P, yet this produces divergent behavior. Higher cooperation rates have been reported for chicken than for the prisoner's dilemma in two-person experiments by Rapoport and Chammah (1969) and in N-person settings.[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983) In a classification of symmetric two-person games, chicken (snowdrift) and the prisoner's dilemma and stag hunt are the three basic social dilemmas.[8](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13235-015-0174-y)
Experimental work also shows the two games respond differently to framing. In a study of 198 students, defection was more frequent in the loss frame than the gain frame in the chicken game, but framing made no difference in the prisoner's dilemma; choices in chicken were predicted by risk attitude, while choices in the prisoner's dilemma were not. Participants identified defection as the risky option in chicken, which has a clear sure-versus-risky structure, but not in the prisoner's dilemma.[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983)
## Repeated play and reputation
Repetition changes the incentives. As Robert Axelrod and [Robert Keohane](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-keohane) noted in 1985, when chicken is played repeatedly, both participants face a powerful motive to refuse cooperation over the short term so that they can build a reputation for being firm over the long term. Once one of the asymmetric equilibria is reached, recoordination toward the other is not expected; the main exception is a credible mutual commitment to Tit-for-Tat.[9](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecosys.2024.101251) This reputation logic extends to public goods provision, where a reputation for toughness in chicken supergames carries risks of its own.[10](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/abs/risks-of-a-reputation-for-toughness-strategy-in-public-goods-provision-problems-modelled-by-chicken-supergames/8D78BE51BA166D74E9B20EE4664D88A9)
## Applications
**International relations.** Chicken is a standard model of crisis bargaining, deterrence, and brinkmanship, in which actors deliberately approach the threshold of conflict to force the other side to back down first.[5](https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/glossary/chicken-game) Scholarship on international cooperation invokes the 1962 [Cuban Missile Crisis](https://www.edgepedia.org/cuban-missile-crisis) as a chicken situation in which failure to agree could have led to nuclear war.[11](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/international-cooperation/chicken-dilemmas-crossing-the-road-to-cooperation/20F835208858F563F5338B886A9C6026) Recent analyses apply the same structure to the Israel-Iran spiral, describing a sustained confrontation that culminated in the game's worst-case outcome, the June 2025 war.[12](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mepo.70070) In modeling terms, chicken represents preemption and deterrence, while the stag hunt represents conflicts where aggression feeds on itself.[4](https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/baliga/htm/stagchick.pdf)
**Evolutionary biology.** The hawk-dove form of the game, introduced by Maynard Smith and Price in 1973, models contests in which fighting is costly and animals do better mixing hawk and dove behavior; the same structure appears as the snowdrift game in spatial evolutionary studies of cooperation.[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983) • [3](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0096300317300231)
**Group size.** [Cooperation](https://www.edgepedia.org/cooperation) in chicken depends on the structure of play. In a comparison of intergroup, two-person, and four-person chicken games with a public-goods structure, the symmetric mixed-strategy equilibria called for each player to invest with probabilities of .42, .60, and .07 respectively, showing how the equilibrium shifts sharply as the game is framed at different levels.[13](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002797041003003)
**Popular culture.** The 1955 film *Rebel without a Cause* dramatizes the game, with [James Dean](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-dean)'s character proving courage through a dangerous contest of chicken.[14](https://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/pearce/modules/lectures/sna2/cooperation/pd/Chicken.htm)
## References
1. [De Dreu, De Dreu & colleagues. Framing prisoners and chickens: Valence effects in the prisoner's dilemma and the chicken game. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (Elsevier).](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110000983)
2. [Chicken Game, Game Theory .net dictionary (Mike Shor).](https://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/Games/ChickenGame.html)
3. [Coevolution of discrete, mixed, and continuous strategy systems boosts in the spatial prisoner's dilemma and chicken games. Applied Mathematics and Computation (Elsevier).](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0096300317300231)
4. [Baliga, Sandeep & Sjöström, Tomas. Conflict Games with Payoff Uncertainty, Northwestern University and Rutgers University working paper.](https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/baliga/htm/stagchick.pdf)
5. [Chicken Game, Model Diplomat glossary.](https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/glossary/chicken-game)
6. [Optimal strategies and cost-benefit analysis of the n-player weightlifting game. Scientific Reports.](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-12394-z)
7. [Payoff matrix for the game of Chicken, Knowledge Ecology Research preview PDF.](https://www.maxapress.com/data/article/ker/preview/pdf/S0269888920000351.pdf)
8. [Płatkowski, Tadeusz. On Derivation and Evolutionary Classification of Social Dilemma Games. Dynamic Games and Applications.](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13235-015-0174-y)
9. [Green central banking and game theory: The Chicken Game-approach. Economic Systems (Elsevier).](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecosys.2024.101251)
10. [The Risks of a Reputation for Toughness: Strategy in Public Goods Provision Problems Modelled by Chicken Supergames. British Journal of Political Science (Cambridge Core).](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/abs/risks-of-a-reputation-for-toughness-strategy-in-public-goods-provision-problems-modelled-by-chicken-supergames/8D78BE51BA166D74E9B20EE4664D88A9)
11. [Chicken dilemmas: crossing the road to cooperation. International Cooperation (Cambridge Core).](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/international-cooperation/chicken-dilemmas-crossing-the-road-to-cooperation/20F835208858F563F5338B886A9C6026)
12. [Sari. Signals, Red Lines, and Collision: The Israel-Iran Spiral and US Intervention. Middle East Policy (Wiley).](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mepo.70070)
13. [Bornstein, Gary; Budescu, David; Zamir, Shmuel. Cooperation in Intergroup, N-Person, and Two-Person Games of Chicken. Journal of Conflict Resolution (Sage).](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002797041003003)
14. [Chicken, San José State University course notes on cooperation and the prisoner's dilemma.](https://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/pearce/modules/lectures/sna2/cooperation/pd/Chicken.htm)
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