Need Help on a Social Science Project

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strangequark

Hi all,

I'm supposed to write a paper about some issue in the social sciences. I wanted to do something with game theory. I was thinking that maybe I should write about how human behaviour should be viewed (more specifically, should human interactions be viewed from a tit-for-tat perspective, or some other perspective?). I was wondering if anyone here knew of any good scholarly articles for or against a tit-for-tat view. There are probably many articles pro tit-for-tat so it would be of even greater help for me to find a scholarly article against it or using a different alternative.

[Edit: In restrospect, I should probably narrow my topic by asking whether or not a specific social phenomena should be viewed as a zero sum game or a non zero sum game. Is there any such phenomena that is in current dispute about what type of game it is?]

 

Strangequark

Elroch

Good to see you, strangequark!

Looking at social sciences applications of game theory sounds very interesting and a good idea.

If you want to make things more surprising and realistic, you will want to look at games with more than two players. If you look at these a bit, you will realise that they are very different indeed, often with many Nash equilibria. This leads to surprising consequences.  Co-operation is in most cases crucial.

One useful trick is that you can turn any non-zero sum game into a zero sum game by adding an artificial extra player. For example you might add the grim reaper to a game where staying alive was the aim.

strangequark

Thanks for your advice, Elroch,

It's also nice to see you again. So basically you recommend looking at games that are non-zero sum, it seems. This makes sense, as probably the majority of games that we'd make from life are non-zero sum. One question though. Which one of these games is really a social science "issue" (i.e., a subject matter with opposing positions)? Could you give me an example of a non-zero sum game that is some type of issue (that can be debated about using studies or statistics in the social sciences), please?

pawn_slayer666

I'm not sure what types of social phemonema you are specifically wanting to look at, but I am reminded of a scene in the movie A Beautiful Mind (The application of Nash Equilibia to Romance).  May or may not be of help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CemLiSI5ox8

Elroch

strangequark, this is where I realise I am pretty ignorant about social sciences. The nearest I get is some economics, and some interest in international relations (both of which are quite find plenty of scope for game theory).

I would have thought you would find plenty of ideas to work with via google.