social psychology and game theory

[noble brown]

One of my favorite subjects to read on is social psychology and in doin so came across game theory. Its capable of predicting social behavior. Its really interesting stuff and anyone interested should wiki it. Alot of u probably already heardnof it an if so I'm wondering if anyone's been curious bout how we could employ the knowledge gained from the social sciences to our real world struggles.

[BrianUltraRedskin]

Agreed. A knowledge of social psychology can be very beneficial in being persuasive and finding the best way to frame your arguments in a debate. It also makes you more aware of the logical fallacies and other types of irrationality you can fall into if you aren't alert.

Social psychology and behavioral economics are hot subjects right now so there are tons of popular books out written for the layman (Nudge, Sway, Predictably Irrational, How We Decide, The Paradox of Choice etc). I'd recommend Erving Goffman and learning about the classic experiments of the field (e.g. the Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments).

[Apoi_Viitor]

The first segment of the documentary The Trap deals with the relationship between game theory and our prevailing social and economic models - and most importantly why and how game theory fails to take into account the complexity of human behavior.

[noble brown]

ill have to see if I can find it. What I find interesting about game theory is that it can reproduce social behaviors. The prisoners dilemma is a very good example with lots of variations. Have u read anything on game theory in particular?
Social psychology is being used against the population everyday. Its why most of the population is so complacent. I'm interested.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The first segment of the documentary The Trap deals with the relationship between game theory and our prevailing social and economic models - and most importantly why and how game theory fails to take into account the complexity of human behavior.

If I understand game theory correctly, then the complexity does not arise from a single "game", but rather as a consquence of developing strategies of winning. Both environment and the proportion of different strategies are important factors in determining which strategies are successful.

Besides, I never got the impression that game theory was supposed to explain the totality of human behaviour in every detail; it is a cross-disciplinary concept and thus it's implementation is subject to strictures of the field of concern. For example, not all so-called games are "zero-sum" whereby one's loss is another's gain and vice versa. Game theory also does not rule out mutually beneficial arrangements.

[MarxSchmarx]

If I understand game theory correctly, then the complexity does not arise from a single "game", but rather as a consquence of developing strategies of winning. Both environment and the proportion of different strategies are important factors in determining which strategies are successful.

Besides, I never got the impression that game theory was supposed to explain the totality of human behaviour in every detail; it is a cross-disciplinary concept and thus it's implementation is subject to strictures of the field of concern. For example, not all so-called games are "zero-sum" whereby one's loss is another's gain and vice versa. Game theory also does not rule out mutually beneficial arrangements.

So you're sort of on the right path.

Game theory in essence is a matter of formalizing costs and benefits, and attempting to discern the optimal course of action in the face of standing costs and benefits for different parties. Some times this involves cooperation, sometimes not.

But let me emphasize the "theory" part of the phrase. Just as physics has frictionless hockey pucks, evolutionary psychology has its rational actors working with known constraints to maximize their return. It's useful to be sure but also meant more to facilitate thought experiments and serve as a first cut for looking into why humans behave the way they do.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

But let me emphasize the "theory" part of the phrase. Just as physics has frictionless hockey pucks, evolutionary psychology has its rational actors working with known constraints to maximize their return. It's useful to be sure but also meant more to facilitate thought experiments and serve as a first cut for looking into why humans behave the way they do.

Game theory doesn't require rational actors, it merely requires actors that have strategies for dealing with other actors. The strategies can either be rationally planned, like a human consciously creating a strategy to achieve a specific goal, or they can arise through a iterative selection process, like instinctive behaviours in animals.

Sure, game theory may be a simplification of what happens in the actual world, but that is no reason to reject it, no more than Newton's theories' lack of an account for relativistic effects is a reason to reject them - Newton's models weren't so much wrong as they were incomplete.

[MarxSchmarx]

Game theory doesn't require rational actors, it merely requires actors that have strategies for dealing with other actors. The strategies can either be rationally planned, like a human consciously creating a strategy to achieve a specific goal, or they can arise through a iterative selection process, like instinctive behaviours in animals.

I was talking about game theory as it is applied to evolutionary psychology and economics (both branches of social science) which very much does presume something like rationality. I concede there are exceptions here - e.g., a newborn baby crying in a "game" against its mother, which may not in any real sense be "rational" but is within the domain of evoutinary psychology - but those (and they are rather few) are rather circumscribed exceptions and the methods of animal behaviour research rather than human psychology probably apply better



Sure, game theory may be a simplification of what happens in the actual world, but that is no reason to reject it, no more than Newton's theories' lack of an account for relativistic effects is a reason to reject them - Newton's models weren't so much wrong as they were incomplete.

Hence my point about frictionless hockey pucks.


All models (including Newton's) are wrong. Some are useful.

[OhYesIdid]

Biologist Richard Levins[/B] ] All models (including Newton's) are wrong. Some are useful.

That's such a cool quote.


In mathematics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics), game theory models strategic situations, or games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_%28mathematics%29), in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others (Myerson, 1991). It is used in the social sciences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sciences) (most notably in economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics), management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management), operations research (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research), political science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_science), and social psychology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_psychology)) as well as in other formal sciences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_sciences) (logic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic), computer science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science), and statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics)) and biology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology) (particularly evolutionary biology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology) and ecology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology)). While initially developed to analyze competitions in which one individual does better at another's expense (zero sum games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_%28game_theory%29)), it has been expanded to treat a wide class of interactions, which are classified according to several criteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory#Types_of_games). Today, "game theory is a sort of umbrella or 'unified field' theory for the rational side of social science, where 'social' is interpreted broadly, to include human as well as non-human players (computers, animals, plants)." (Aumann 1987 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory#CITEREFAumann1987)).

(emphasis yours, man)
From what little I can gather, a "game" is the process through which something, the reward, is gained. Although the word "game" usually imples competition, and many games are individual endeavors. Anyone care to comment?

[noble brown]

Wiki the prisoners dilemma and its variations for a taste of what game theory is. I see it in action every day at work.

[MarxSchmarx]

Now that I re-read it, Levins says he was inspired by orwell ("All animals are created equal, just some are more equal than others"), I guess that's no small part of why it rocks :D





(emphasis yours, man)
From what little I can gather, a "game" is the process through which something, the reward, is gained. Although the word "game" usually imples competition, and many games are individual endeavors. Anyone care to comment?

Whilst I think such abstractions can be useful, they also ignore the myriad of assumptions underlying each respective discpline.

For instance, applying game theory to biology would not be appropriate were it not for the entire corpus of natural selection to render game theory relevant. Similarly, applying game theory to economics would not make sense were it not for the assumption of resource scarcity.

Such assumptions must be explicated. To abstract games from such assumptions, while a potentially curious philosophical enterprise, is also to gloss over the fact that the presumptions of each discipline have an ideological, and, ultimately, material basis in the social order.

Therefore, to assert the unifying potential of game theory is to assert that the underlying ideological assumptions do not matter. But, to take a less controversial example, who has decreed that a biology based only on natural selection as the final explanator of all phenomena (as opposed to the preponderance of genetic drift in the history life) is the only biology worthy of analysis? Might game theory be a mere curiosity as opposed to a substantive account of "what really goes on" in the absence of the validity of the underlying assumptions?

And biology is a rather easy case that exposes the limitations of game theory's explanatory power, despite its claims to universality. For the assumptions of biology, whilst to some extent ideological, are also less relevant in terms of their political implications. Alas, when it comes to economics or psychology or any other social science, nothing remotely similar can be claimed.