Social Science Conceives of Social Situations as Games

The modern social science is extremely important and it is worthy of noting that many specialists working in this field tend to find quite original way and interpretation of social life and human behavior. At the same time, it is necessary to understand that social science is a very serious subject that focuses on the research of human society, its functioning and development. In such a situation it is quite natural that scientists are basically focused on the research and understanding of the basic principles of the functioning of society. It should be pointed out that some views are quite interesting and unusual. For instance, Gladwell and Rosnthal in their works attempt to project their views on games on social science. In such a way, they attempt to conceive of social situations as games and attempt to analyze the rules, according to which these ”˜games’ are played.

On analyzing the work of both social scientists, Gladwell and Rosenthal, it is important to underline that they attempt to research the problem of social situations in the complex as a part of a solid mechanism known as society.

Basically, they are convinced that social situations can be structured and systematized to the extent that it would be possible to speak about certain rules and norms that actually regulate and control social relations and situations.

In this respect, it should be said that Gladwell, for instance, analyzes the process of decision making and attempt to elaborate the basic rules according to which certain strategies of decision making are chosen or certain decisions are made. At the same time, the researcher underline that the existing rules are norms defining the process of decision making are very complicated so that it is quite difficult to scientifically justify them. Nonetheless, he argues that the rules and norms adopted by people in relation to the process of decision making were crucial for their survival, notably the author estimates that “the only way human beings could ever have survived as a species for as long as we have is that we’ve developed another kind of decision-making apparatus that’s capable of making very quick judgments based on very little information” (Gladwell 11).

On analyzing Gladwell’s researches, it should be said that the basic concept of the author is the adaptive conscious in action which actually implies that in the process of decision making, human beings should primarily rely on their ”˜gut feeling’ as probably the most reliable tool that can contribute to the effective decision making. Practically, it means that in order to prevent terror attacks of September 11, it was necessary not simply take into consideration the actual information Americans had but also pay  attention to the adaptive unconscious, i.e. it was necessary to take into consideration individuals’ intuition their unconscious feeling of the upcoming danger.

At the same time, it should be said that, from a purely scientific point of view, such a position seems to be a bit chaotic and needs to be enlarged. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the works of Rosenthal who agrees with Gladwell in relation to the existence of certain rules that actually regulate social relations and affect the choice of strategies of decision making and the decision making process at large. To put it more precisely, the researcher argues that on analyzing the process of decision making as well as different social situations it is always necessary to leave some room for error (Rosenthal 361). Practically, it means that in the process of decision making, for instance, it is necessary to understand that the decision made may be potentially erroneous. This is why it is necessary to develop certain criteria which could minimize the risk of error or else, it is possible to develop some alternatives to the decision made in the case of error. Similarly, it is necessary to avoid apparently risky decisions when the probability of error is extremely high and such risk should be marginalized.

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that the modern social science offer a variety of views on the interpretation and perception of various social situations. At the same time, some researchers, such as Gladwell and Rosenthal, attempt to apply the rules and regulations to social situations in such a way that it was possible to logically interpret and forecast their possible consequences and principles of functioning of social norms in particular situations that may be very helpful, especially in the process of decision making.



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