 One approach notes that kin selection (either in its inclusive fitness form or the direct fitness approach) and multilevel selection “differ primarily in the types of questions being addressed” (Goodnight 2013: 1546). Whereas kin selection aims at identifying character states that maximize fitness, multilevel selection methods have the goal of looking at the effects of selection on trait changes. While the two have formal similarities, the kin selection models arose out of game theory and evolutionary stable strategies (ESS) and are used to identify the optimal solution, but they cannot be used to examine the process by which the population will achieve that optimum or equilibrium. In contrast, the multilevel selection methods, such as contextual analysis, which arise out of the quantitative genetics traditions, are used to describe the processes acting on the population in its current  state.[11]  Thus, the two methods are not the same, nor are they competing paradigms. 