From Game Theory to Drama Theory

Abstract

Drama theory is an analytical framework that can be used by parties, either in negotiation or in confrontation with others, to inform their strategic decisions. Its conceptual foundation is game theory and so the elements of a situation upon which attention is focused are the parties that it involves, the strategic choices that they have available to them, and their evaluation of the stability and the outcomes of the resulting situations that they could coproduce. However, game theory is centrally preoccupied with the behavior of rational agents, and it has been shown that in many real-life games paradoxes undermine attempts to make objectively rational choices. This recognition led to the development of metagame analysis and its associated facilitated group process, the analysis of options. While the metagame approach overcame the paradoxes in games of coordination and in confrontations typified by “prisoner’s dilemma,” it failed to surmount the difficulties in the game “Chicken” where players are seeking to induce others to act in certain ways. In these circumstances, emotionally-fueled changes in individual preferences and perceptions drive the development of an interaction. These developments were codified in “soft game theory” which in turn provided a theoretical foundation for the more rounded schema of drama theory. The latter enables a mapping of the hopes and demands of those involved in an interaction and pays due attention to such practically important matters as the credibility of claims, threats, and promises and the emotional tone of an engagement.