Talk:Drama Theory
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[edit] Game theory?
How does this relate to game theory? Other than the statement that it does, I must say I don't see the similarity. Could someone who knows the area clarify this? Thanks! --Kzollman 06:05, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Game theory --> Drama theory
It might help to think of Drama theory as a descriptive theory. It offers more accurate representations of conflicts than game theory. Game theory is a normative model and it is based on all players acting rationally and following the fundamentals of utility theory (maximising utility --> rational). To explain it bluntly, what Drama theory does is to expand on this and add the emotional factors in. There are a couple of very good examples for this. One of them is the game of 'chicken' where two players drive towards one another. Whoever swerves is called a chicken (ie loses), whoever doesn't wins. If no one swerves they both crash (and thus lose) while if both swerve no one loses. Game theory finds two equilibria -- each of them occurring when one player swerves and the other does not. If both signal their intention to go for the equilibrium that's best for them, game theory finds that both are acting irrationally, given the other's signalled intention. In drama-theoretic terminology, both have a threat dilemma -- they are trying to make credible an incredible threat. If one player, moved by anger, can find reasons to prefer 'death to dishonour' -- ie, to prefer a crash to letting the other win -- then that player's threat becomes credible and they win by changing the game. There is thus a rational-emotional competition in which each player tries to be more irrational than the other and/or to find reasons, such as 'honour', to justify actions that would otherwise be irrational. Of course, if both sides change the game in this way, then the crash outcome becomes an equilibrium. By bringing in emotional factors, this drama-theoretic explanation takes in phenomena such as 'war fever', where countries that begin by threatening war to win a diplomatic victory end up hating each other so much that they actually prefer war.
Drama theory seems to be very effective in representing highly emotional situations like mergers and acquisitions (check Rosenhead's book). However, not much has been published showing the practical use of drama theory in real cases. The websites Dilemmas galore and [dramatec] give many examples of practical applications to ongoing problems, but not in as much detail as one would expect of a proper case study. If detailed case studies exist, I am not really aware of them.
[edit] On the relationship of game theory to drama theory
I have edited the main article to explain the relationship to game theory more thoroughly. The two main points are, first, that drama theory emerged from a deep unease with how game theory handled dilemmas such as the prisoner's dilemma and the game of chicken. To many of the early workers in game theory these dilemmas seemed to show something wrong with the instrumentally rational approach of game theory. (See, among others, N. Howard, Paradoxes of Rationality, MIT Press 1971 and A.Rapoport, Fights Games and Debates, Univ. of Michigan, 1974.) Instrumental rationality is rationality that takes means (the strategies available to players) and ends (players' preferences) as given. It thus leaves no room for emotion and also (surprisingly for a theory about rationality) no room for rational debate between players. Since the sixties, mainstream game theory has turned decisively away from being concerned about dilemmas; it takes instrumental rationality to be a necessity of thought. Those game theorists who became drama theorists have continued to be concerned, and have in fact made dilemma analysis their principal tool.
The second main point is that drama theory has now made itself complementary to game theory. It focuses on a preplay period of communication in which the game is constructed. When the game is finally played, instrumental rationality prevails; in the preplay period, rational-emotional debate about means and ends leads to successive re-definitions of the game. The interesting thing is that this preplay debate is analyzed mathematically, just as game theory analyzes game-playing mathematically. Predictions are made about the debate and the re-definitions it leads to, just as game theory makes predictions about the outcome of the game that is finally played.
A third, less theoretical, point is that drama theory places more emphasis on practicality than game theory does. The 'card table' model it uses, being non-quantitative, is easy to fit to a real-world interaction between parties and yields conclusions of immediate practical use to a party involved in an interaction. Drama theory is now being used by the NATO force in Afghanistan to help plan interactions with local, regional and national parties. (The Dilemmasgalore site gives an example of military use of drama theory that you can access by downloading free software.)Nhoward 12:14, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
