Question: In game theory, what notable work was developed by the American mathematician Merrill M. Flood that exemplifies why two individuals might find it hard to cooperate against their best interest?
Context: Rohit Jivanlal Parikh (born November 20, 1936) is a mathematician, logician, and philosopher who has worked in many areas in traditional logic, including recursion theory and proof theory.  His catholic attitude towards logic has led to work on topics like vagueness, ultrafinitism, belief revision, logic of knowledge, game theory and social software (social procedure).  This last area seeks to combine techniques from logic, computer science (especially logic of programs) and game theory to understand the structure of social algorithms.  Examples of such are elections, transport systems, lectures, conferences, and monetary systems, all of which have properties of interest to those who are logically inclined. Game Theory was a power pop band founded in 1982 by singer/songwriter Scott Miller, combining melodic jangle pop with dense experimental production and hyperliterate lyrics.  MTV described their sound as "still visceral and vital" in 2013, with records "full of sweetly psychedelic-tinged, appealingly idiosyncratic gems" that continued "influencing a new generation of indie artists."  Between 1982 and 1990, Game Theory released five studio albums and two EPs, which had long been out of print until 2014, when Omnivore Recordings began a series of remastered reissues of the entire Game Theory catalog.  Miller's posthumously completed Game Theory album, "Supercalifragile", was released in August 2017 in a limited first pressing. A non-credible threat is a term used in game theory and economics to describe a threat in a sequential game that a "rational" player would actually not carry out, because it would not be in his best interest to do so. Brian Skyrms (born 1938) is a Distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and Economics at the University of California, Irvine and a Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University.  He has worked on problems in the philosophy of science, causation, decision theory, game theory, and the foundations of probability.  Most recently, his work has focused on the evolution of social norms using evolutionary game theory.  His two recent books "Evolution of the Social Contract" and "The Stag Hunt" are both on this topic.  These books use arguments and examples from evolutionary game theory to cover topics of interest to political philosophy, philosophy of social science, philosophy of language, and the philosophy of biology. Merrill Meeks Flood (1908 – 1991) was an American mathematician, notable for developing, with Melvin Dresher, the basis of the game theoretical Prisoner's dilemma model of cooperation and conflict while being at RAND in 1950 (Albert W. Tucker gave the game its prison-sentence interpretation, and thus the name by which it is known today). The prisoner's dilemma is a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two completely "rational" individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so.  It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950.  Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence rewards and named it, "prisoner's dilemma" (Poundstone, 1992), presenting it as follows: The prisoner's dilemma is a standard example in game theory that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. Theories of motivation are concerned with why people do what they do.  There are really only two options.  People can act from an internal desire, the basis of which is hidden in their psychology.  It is usually independent of outside factors, and is sometimes perceived as being against their own best interests.  This is called intrinsic or natural motivation.  People can also be moved to act by the very opposite, from a deliberate and conscious calculation of what is in their best interest.  This is called extrinsic, or rational motivation.  Much of western philosophy, from which political and economic theories spring, is based on the notion that people are rational actors who behave predictably because they always act in their own best interest.  This is increasingly being disputed by modern theories which view human behavior as more complex and nuanced. Algorithmic game theory is an area in the intersection of game theory and algorithm design, whose objective is to design algorithms in strategic environments.  Typically, in Algorithmic Game Theory problems, the input to a given algorithm is distributed among many players who have a personal interest in the output.  In those situations, the agents might not report the input truthfully because of their own personal interests.  On top of the usual requirements in classical algorithm design, say "polynomial-time running time", "good approximation ratio", ... the designer must also care about incentive constraints.  We can see Algorithmic Game Theory from two perspectives: Games and Economic Behavior (GEB) is a journal of game theory published by Elsevier.  Founded in 1989, the journal's stated objective is to communicate game-theoretic ideas across theory and applications.  It is considered to be the leading journal of game theory and one of the top journals in economics, and it is one of the two official journals of the "Game Theory Society".  Apart from game theory and economics, the research areas of the journal also include applications of game theory in political science, biology, computer science, mathematics and psychology.  The current editors of "GEB" are E. Kalai (editor in chief), M.O. Jackson, E. Lehrer, T.R. Palfrey, and D.C. Parkes.
Answer: Prisoner's dilemma