A minimal diversity game is an n player strategic form game in which each player has pure strategies at his disposal. The payoff to each player is always 1, unless all players select the same pure strategy, in which case all players receive zero payoff. Such a game has a unique isolated...

Human utility embodies a number of seemingly irrational aspects. The leading example in this paper is that utilities often depend on the presence of salient unchosen alternatives. Our focus is to understand <i>why</i> an evolutionary process might optimally lead to such seemingly dysfunctional features...