So Ive been trying to come up with an approach to social science that could really make some headway into understanding human behavior. Im very much still working it out. Im also very excited about the prospects. Im not a social scientist and dont really want to be one. However, Im hopeful that I can flesh my ideas out to the point where people interested in doing the actual research can take them and run with them. Im open to doing more work than I want to :-) In any case, Im just going to put out this (very rough) outline of some of my ideas with the goal of receiving your feedback. Thanks! ------------------------------------------------------ Heres my theory: People are all making decisions subconsciously for the purpose of some agenda they are not aware of. My hunch is that it has to do with something like a collective unconscious-- that it is a reaction to group need, as opposed to the needs of the individual organism. The evidence suggests to me that it is very much a social thing. I want to observe people playing games in genuine social situations. The heart of the approach is that were comparing the objectively best way to play the game against the way people actually play the game. And that its in a social setting where the stakes of the outcome are low, people are comfortable, able to act in an uninhibited and natural way, hopefully forgetting as much as possible that someone is watching them carefully. So this is an observational approach; we are looking for patterns. If we find any, we can then investigate them more carefully. So we want to measure how and when people make bad moves. Maybe there are patterns here-- Do certain people make a certain kind of mistake, while others tend to make another kind of mistake? Do some players make the same mistake over and over? In the same game? Do they make the same kind of mistake in different games? Basically, what were doing here is looking to create a profile of each player, but also finding similarities and differences in style across and between players. Then we can try to see if we can find some connection between social relationships and how people play games. Some possible social patterns: A) Some people play one game intelligently, while playing other games based on irrational rules. B) Person X will play intelligently in the absence of Person Y. Person X will play poorly in the presence of person Y. C) Some players might play differently based on mood. Mood would have to be subjectively measured. ----------------------------- I think subjective measures are going to have to be a part of this. Theres just too much going on in social groups and even within one persons mind. Asking people how they feel or what they think with a survey or interview is fairly basic. I think we can make this more robust in a few different ways: 1) Cross-referencing by asking people to provide second and third opinion. So we dont just ask each person about him/herself, but we ask each person to evaluate everyone else in the group. 2) Including our own subjective evaluation as researchers. (Person X said he was not angry, but really its pretty obvious from watching a video recording of his tantrum that this is not true.) Basically, I would call this bullshit adjustment (so its not a controlled study, rather its bullshit-adjusted.) This is tricky business, because it greatly raises the risk of compromising the objectivity of the whole thing-- its one thing to have a researcher give you twenty bucks and a questionairre that takes an hour to fill out, but its another to have all your friends talking about you, to have scientists carefully watching you over months and years. Personally, Im willing to risk hurting peoples feelings in order to get at the truth. I really dont see a way out of this, and I think we only limit our potential understanding by tiptoeing around this issue. Basically, I think everyone has to be very sensitive and respectful, listen to each other, maintain clear boundaries and just try to decide as a group how far theyre willing to go with it, with minimal regard for red tape. --------------------------- My hope is that over time we can slowly find ways to replace the subjective with objective measures. I dont want to get way ahead of myself here, but heart rates, eye movements, these are things we can objectively measure. Really, all Im suggesting is that interested people form or join existing groups. The new or combined groups will consist of some combination of people playing social games and others who are simply there to observe. The goals of these hybrid groups are: 1) To play games and have a good time 2) To observe, measure and understand human behavior. This isnt that different from how people already learn about human behavior outside of a social science context. My suggestion is simply that we systematize it and start communicating about it in a more rigorous fashion. Which really doesnt *sound* like fun :-) Maybe its one of those games that just takes some time to get in to.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 10:40:16 +0000
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