How Do the Social Norms and Expectations Influence Individual Behavior? Quantum Model of Self/Other Interaction in the Strategic Decision-Making

  • Abstract:

    A social norm can be understood as a kind of grammar of social interaction. As grammar in the speech, it specifies what is acceptable in the given context. However, the existence of a norm does not directly lead to compliance, actor`s expectation about others also play a crucial role. Experimental data shows that a social norm is mainly followed when the actor believes that a) it is expected to behave accordingly and that b) others will follow that norm as well. Therefore, the expectation about others influence actor`s behavior and her identity. But what are the specific rules of the ‘grammar of social interaction’? The relationship is well-established qualitatively, but there are no measures for quantitative predictions. This paper presents a quantitative model of the self – and the other – perspective interaction based on so called ‘quantum model of decision-making’. This approach models a given situation as the vector in N-dimensional vector space (C*-algebra) and it specifies the probabilities of the individual outcomes. Specifically, the model enables to define how the actor’s expectation about others influence her decision (and vice versa). The model was designed for the strategic interaction of two players and tested in the case of one shot Prisoner`s Dilemma game. The results confirm the prediction of the model, including quantitative prediction in the form of the q-test. Quantum model of decision-making derived and tested in this work offers a new conceptual framework for examining the interaction of the self -and the other- perspective in the process of social interaction. It enables to specify how the social norms influence individual behavior in the way that is consistent with the known qualitative and quantitative results.