Psychology Definition of SOCIAL INTERACTION: Social interaction is a process of reciprocal stimulation or response between 2 people. It develops competition. Table 1: Social action types and examples of their use in multi-user games The results of the study indicate the possibility of using the model of. Game Theory: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Game theory is the science of strategy. It attempts to determine mathematically and logically the actions that “players” should take to secure the best outcomes for themselves in a wide array of “games.” The games it studies range from chess to child rearing and from tennis to takeovers. But the games all share the common feature of interdependence. That is, the outcome for each participant depends on the choices (strategies) of all. In so- called zero- sum games the interests of the players conflict totally, so that one person’s gain always is another’s loss. More typical are games with the potential for either mutual gain (positive sum) or mutual harm (negative sum), as well as some conflict. Game theory was pioneered by Princeton mathematician john von neumann. In the early years the emphasis was on games of pure conflict (zero- sum games). Other games were considered in a cooperative form. That is, the participants were supposed to choose and implement their actions jointly. Recent research has focused on games that are neither zero sum nor purely cooperative.
In these games the players choose their actions separately, but their links to others involve elements of both competition and cooperation. Games are fundamentally different from decisions made in a neutral environment. To illustrate the point, think of the difference between the decisions of a lumberjack and those of a general. When the lumberjack decides how to chop wood, he does not expect the wood to fight back; his environment is neutral. But when the general tries to cut down the enemy’s army, he must anticipate and overcome resistance to his plans. Like the general, a game player must recognize his interaction with other intelligent and purposive people. His own choice must allow both for conflict and for possibilities for cooperation. The essence of a game is the interdependence of player strategies. There are two distinct types of strategic interdependence: sequential and simultaneous. In the former the players move in sequence, each aware of the others’ previous actions. In the latter the players act at the same time, each ignorant of the others’ actions. A general principle for a player in a sequential- move game is to look ahead and reason back. Each player should figure out how the other players will respond to his current move, how he will respond in turn, and so on. The player anticipates where his initial decisions will ultimately lead and uses this information to calculate his current best choice. When thinking about how others will respond, he must put himself in their shoes and think as they would; he should not impose his own reasoning on them. In principle, any sequential game that ends after a finite sequence of moves can be “solved” completely. We determine each player’s best strategy by looking ahead to every possible outcome. Simple games, such as tic- tac- toe, can be solved in this way and are therefore not challenging. For many other games, such as chess, the calculations are too complex to perform in practice—even with computers. Therefore, the players look a few moves ahead and try to evaluate the resulting positions on the basis of experience. In contrast to the linear chain of reasoning for sequential games, a game with simultaneous moves involves a logical circle. Although the players act at the same time, in ignorance of the others’ current actions, each must be aware that there are other players who are similarly aware, and so on. The thinking goes: “I think that he thinks that I think . His own best action is an integral part of this overall calculation. This logical circle is squared (the circular reasoning is brought to a conclusion) using a concept of equilibrium developed by the Princeton mathematician john nash. We look for a set of choices, one for each player, such that each person’s strategy is best for him when all others are playing their stipulated best strategies. In other words, each picks his best response to what the others do. Sometimes one person’s best choice is the same no matter what the others do. This is called a “dominant strategy” for that player. At other times, one player has a uniformly bad choice—a “dominated strategy”—in the sense that some other choice is better for him no matter what the others do. The search for an equilibrium should begin by looking for dominant strategies and eliminating dominated ones. When we say that an outcome is an equilibrium, there is no presumption that each person’s privately best choice will lead to a collectively optimal result. Indeed, there are notorious examples, such as the prisoners’ dilemma (see below), where the players are drawn into a bad outcome by each following his best private interests. Nash’s notion of equilibrium remains an incomplete solution to the problem of circular reasoning in simultaneous- move games. Some games have many such equilibria while others have none. And the dynamic process that can lead to an equilibrium is left unspecified. But in spite of these flaws, the concept has proved extremely useful in analyzing many strategic interactions. It is often thought that the application of game theory requires all players to be hyperrational. The theory makes no such claims. Players may be spiteful or envious as well as charitable and empathetic. Recall George Bernard Shaw’s amendment to the Golden Rule: “Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Their tastes may be different.” In addition to different motivations, other players may have different information. When calculating an equilibrium or anticipating the response to your move, you always have to take the other players as they are, not as you are. The following examples of strategic interaction illustrate some of the fundamentals of game theory. The prisoners’ dilemma. Two suspects are questioned separately, and each can confess or keep silent. If suspect A keeps silent, then suspect B can get a better deal by confessing. If A confesses, B had better confess to avoid especially harsh treatment. Confession is B’s dominant strategy. The same is true for A. Therefore, in equilibrium both confess. Both would fare better if they both stayed silent. Such cooperative behavior can be achieved in repeated plays of the game because the temporary gain from cheating (confession) can be outweighed by the long- run loss due to the breakdown of cooperation. Strategies such as tit- for- tat are suggested in this context. Mixing moves. In some situations of conflict, any systematic action will be discovered and exploited by the rival. Therefore, it is important to keep the rival guessing by mixing your moves. Typical examples arise in sports—whether to run or to pass in a particular situation in football, or whether to hit a passing shot crosscourt or down the line in tennis. Game theory quantifies this insight and details the right proportions of such mixtures. Strategic moves. A player can use threats and promises to alter other players’ expectations of his future actions, and thereby induce them to take actions favorable to him or deter them from making moves that harm him. To succeed, the threats and promises must be credible. This is problematic because when the time comes, it is generally costly to carry out a threat or make good on a promise. Game theory studies several ways to enhance credibility. The general principle is that it can be in a player’s interest to reduce his own freedom of future action. By so doing, he removes his own temptation to renege on a promise or to forgive others’ transgressions. For example, Cort. Without ships to sail home, Cort. Although his soldiers were vastly outnumbered, this threat to fight to the death demoralized the opposition, who chose to retreat rather than fight such a determined opponent. Polaroid Corporation used a similar strategy when it purposefully refused to diversify out of the instant photography market. It was committed to a life- or- death battle against any intruder in the market. When Kodak entered the instant photography market, Polaroid put all its resources into the fight; fourteen years later, Polaroid won a nearly billion- dollar lawsuit against Kodak and regained its monopoly market. Introduced by Thomas Schelling in The Strategy of Conflict, brinkmanship “is the tactic of deliberately letting the situation get somewhat out of hand, just because its being out of hand may be intolerable to the other party and force his accommodation.” When mass demonstrators confronted totalitarian governments in Eastern Europe and China, both sides were engaging in just such a strategy. Sometimes one side backs down and concedes defeat; sometimes tragedy results when they fall over the brink together. Bargaining. Two players decide how to split a pie. Each wants a larger share, and both prefer to achieve agreement sooner rather than later. When the two take turns making offers, the principle of looking ahead and reasoning back determines the equilibrium shares. Agreement is reached at once, but the cost of delay governs the shares. The player more impatient to reach agreement gets a smaller share. Concealing and revealing information. When one player knows something that others do not, sometimes he is anxious to conceal this information (his hand in poker) and at other times he wants to reveal it credibly (a company’s commitment to quality). In both cases the general principle is that actions speak louder than words. To conceal information, mix your moves. Bluffing in poker, for example, must not be systematic. Recall Winston Churchill’s dictum of hiding the truth in a “bodyguard of lies.” To convey information, use an action that is a credible “signal,” something that would not be desirable if the circumstances were otherwise. For example, an extended warranty is a credible signal to the consumer that the firm believes it is producing a high- quality product. Social Contract Theory . Socrates uses something quite like a social contract argument to explain to Crito why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty. However, social contract theory is rightly associated with modern moral and political theory and is given its first full exposition and defense by Thomas Hobbes. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean- Jacques Rousseau are the best known proponents of this enormously influential theory, which has been one of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the history of the modern West. In the twentieth century, moral and political theory regained philosophical momentum as a result of John Rawls’ Kantian version of social contract theory, and was followed by new analyses of the subject by David Gauthier and others. More recently, philosophers from different perspectives have offered new criticisms of social contract theory. In particular, feminists and race- conscious philosophers have argued that social contract theory is at least an incomplete picture of our moral and political lives, and may in fact camouflage some of the ways in which the contract is itself parasitical upon the subjugations of classes of persons. Table of Contents Socrates' Argument Modern Social Contract Theory Thomas Hobbes John Locke Jean- Jacques Rousseau More Recent Social Contract Theories John Rawls' A Theory of Justice David Gauthier Contemporary Critiques of Social Contract Theory Feminist Arguments The Sexual Contract The Nature of the Liberal Individual Arguing from Care Race- Conscious Argument Conclusion References and Further Reading 1. Socrates' Argument. In the early Platonic dialogue, Crito, Socrates makes a compelling argument as to why he must stay in prison and accept the death penalty, rather than escape and go into exile in another Greek city. He personifies the Laws of Athens, and, speaking in their voice, explains that he has acquired an overwhelming obligation to obey the Laws because they have made his entire way of life, and even the fact of his very existence, possible. They made it possible for his mother and father to marry, and therefore to have legitimate children, including himself. Having been born, the city of Athens, through its laws, then required that his father care for and educate him. Socrates' life and the way in which that life has flourished in Athens are each dependent upon the Laws. Importantly, however, this relationship between citizens and the Laws of the city are not coerced. Citizens, once they have grown up, and have seen how the city conducts itself, can choose whether to leave, taking their property with them, or stay. Staying implies an agreement to abide by the Laws and accept the punishments that they mete out. And, having made an agreement that is itself just, Socrates asserts that he must keep to this agreement that he has made and obey the Laws, in this case, by staying and accepting the death penalty. Importantly, the contract described by Socrates is an implicit one: it is implied by his choice to stay in Athens, even though he is free to leave. In Plato's most well- known dialogue, Republic, social contract theory is represented again, although this time less favorably. In Book II, Glaucon offers a candidate for an answer to the question . What men would most want is to be able to commit injustices against others without the fear of reprisal, and what they most want to avoid is being treated unjustly by others without being able to do injustice in return. Justice then, he says, is the conventional result of the laws and covenants that men make in order to avoid these extremes. Being unable to commit injustice with impunity (as those who wear the ring of Gyges would), and fearing becoming victims themselves, men decide that it is in their interests to submit themselves to the convention of justice. Socrates rejects this view, and most of the rest of the dialogue centers on showing that justice is worth having for its own sake, and that the just man is the happy man. So, from Socrates’ point of view, justice has a value that greatly exceeds the prudential value that Glaucon assigns to it. These views, in the Crito and the Republic, might seem at first glance inconsistent: in the former dialogue Socrates uses a social contract type of argument to show why it is just for him to remain in prison, whereas in the latter he rejects social contract as the source of justice. These two views are, however, reconcilable. From Socrates' point of view, a just man is one who will, among other things, recognize his obligation to the state by obeying its laws. The state is the morally and politically most fundamental entity, and as such deserves our highest allegiance and deepest respect. Just men know this and act accordingly. Justice, however, is more than simply obeying laws in exchange for others obeying them as well. Justice is the state of a well- regulated soul, and so the just man will also necessarily be the happy man. So, justice is more than the simple reciprocal obedience to law, as Glaucon suggests, but it does nonetheless include obedience to the state and the laws that sustain it. So in the end, although Plato is perhaps the first philosopher to offer a representation of the argument at the heart of social contract theory, Socrates ultimately rejects the idea that social contract is the original source of justice. Modern Social Contract Theory a. Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes, 1. England's history: the English Civil War, waged from 1. To describe this conflict in the most general of terms, it was a clash between the King and his supporters, the Monarchists, who preferred the traditional authority of a monarch, and the Parliamentarians, most notably led by Oliver Cromwell, who demanded more power for the quasi- democratic institution of Parliament. Hobbes represents a compromise between these two factions. On the one hand he rejects the theory of the Divine Right of Kings, which is most eloquently expressed by Robert Filmer in his Patriarcha or the Natural Power of Kings, (although it would be left to John Locke to refute Filmer directly). Filmer’s view held that a king’s authority was invested in him (or, presumably, her) by God, that such authority was absolute, and therefore that the basis of political obligation lay in our obligation to obey God absolutely. According to this view, then, political obligation is subsumed under religious obligation. On the other hand, Hobbes also rejects the early democratic view, taken up by the Parliamentarians, that power ought to be shared between Parliament and the King. In rejecting both these views, Hobbes occupies the ground of one is who both radical and conservative. He argues, radically for his times, that political authority and obligation are based on the individual self- interests of members of society who are understood to be equal to one another, with no single individual invested with any essential authority to rule over the rest, while at the same time maintaining the conservative position that the monarch, which he called the Sovereign, must be ceded absolute authority if society is to survive. Hobbes' political theory is best understood if taken in two parts: his theory of human motivation, Psychological Egoism, and his theory of the social contract, founded on the hypothetical State of Nature. Hobbes has, first and foremost, a particular theory of human nature, which gives rise to a particular view of morality and politics, as developed in his philosophical masterpiece, Leviathan, published in 1. The Scientific Revolution, with its important new discoveries that the universe could be both described and predicted in accordance with universal laws of nature, greatly influenced Hobbes. He sought to provide a theory of human nature that would parallel the discoveries being made in the sciences of the inanimate universe. His psychological theory is therefore informed by mechanism, the general view that everything in the universe is produced by nothing other than matter in motion. According to Hobbes, this extends to human behavior. Human macro- behavior can be aptly described as the effect of certain kinds of micro- behavior, even though some of this latter behavior is invisible to us. So, such behaviors as walking, talking, and the like are themselves produced by other actions inside of us. And these other actions are themselves caused by the interaction of our bodies with other bodies, human or otherwise, which create in us certain chains of causes and effects, and which eventually give rise to the human behavior that we can plainly observe. We, including all of our actions and choices, are then, according to this view, as explainable in terms of universal laws of nature as are the motions of heavenly bodies. The gradual disintegration of memory, for example, can be explained by inertia. As we are presented with ever more sensory information, the residue of earlier impressions . From Hobbes’ point of view, we are essentially very complicated organic machines, responding to the stimuli of the world mechanistically and in accordance with universal laws of human nature. In Hobbes' view, this mechanistic quality of human psychology implies the subjective nature of normative claims. So, too, the terms . Moral terms do not, therefore, describe some objective state of affairs, but are rather reflections of individual tastes and preferences. In addition to Subjectivism, Hobbes also infers from his mechanistic theory of human nature that humans are necessarily and exclusively self- interested. All men pursue only what they perceive to be in their own individually considered best interests - they respond mechanistically by being drawn to that which they desire and repelled by that to which they are averse.
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