Can Game theory explain Social Distancing in Society?
While learning about game theory, the prisoner’s dilemma presented in class poses an interesting and thought-provoking scenario that highlights the mathematical reasoning that lies beneath human decision making. Learning about this specific example made me wonder whether decision making in general can be modeled by a similar payoff matrix, and whether this concept of game theory could be used to explain human decision making in realms outside of the specific example with respect to the prisoners. The following article presents an interesting view of how game theory can be used in fact to explain the rationale behind the decision for people to follow social distancing in the midst of the pandemic.
The main question that comes to mind is how to encourage cooperation among people to work towards the common good and minimize the risk of the spread of infection. Game theory fits in suitably here as a useful tool to study decision making when gains depend on decisions made by different stakeholders involved. The action (confess or not confess in the prisoner’s dilemma case) in this case is whether a person make the decision to social distance or not. This decision can be seen as analogous to the decision-making process in a game with multiple players involved. Let’s consider two people, just like the prisoner’s dilemma. The efficient outcome is when both people follow social distancing norms – “collective rationality”, as termed in the article. However, there remains the temptation to break the decision to maintain social distancing if everyone else is staying at home.
The payoff matrix in this example gives a Nash Equilibrium that is in fact the scenario where both people do not social follow social distancing. The question that is now posed is how to stray away from this happening and move towards the goal that every country wanted to achieve of both people following social distancing. It can be extended even further to whether countries should share their strategies if they have been effective in curbing the infections or not.
Viewing the complex scenario with a payoff matrix presents a mathematical model for a structured way of thinking about the problem. It is interesting to think about how Game Theory learnt in class can be applied to this relevant issue to help understand the rationale and mathematical reasoning behind choice making in the real world.
Link to Article: https://indiacurrents.com/game-theory-explains-the-pandemic/