Review of Social Games in Social Psychology and Social Neuroscience Research

By : Adhiraj Chowdhury, Madhavi Rangaswamy

Page No: 429-441

Abstract
The history of social games had a slow start around 1950, with greater emphasis given to the theoretical aspects of game theory in the beginning phase. Thereafter, the paradigm caught on rapidly with social psychology researchers and the focus of these games soon changed from being about outcome of economic transactions to the influence of social, psychological and situational factors. The emergence of social neuroscience in the 1990s proved to be a serendipitous event for the future of social games where the focus shifted from the assessment of social behavior to the understanding of the brain networks underlying social interaction. This review traces the path traversed by the three most used social games, namely Ultimatum Game (UG), Prisoner’s Dilemma Game (PDG) and Trust Game (TG), and provides an account of the type of questions relevant to social psychology followed by the transformative nature of social neuroscience questions about the human brain in social function. The review also emphasizes implications for social policy regarding the assessment of social dysfunction. This clarifies how social games, combined with the methodology of social neuroscience, have the power to provide insights for the assessment of social dysfunction in various psychiatric disorders. 

Authors :
Adhiraj Chowdhury : NeuroCognition Laboratory, School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Madhavi Rangaswamy : NeuroCognition Laboratory, School of Psychological Sciences, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. 
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/JPR.2024.19.02.23