Game theory analysis of self-awareness and politeness

Huanhuan Guo; Biao Gao; Huanhuan Guo; Biao Gao

doi:10.3934/mbe.2022491

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering

2022, Volume 19, Issue 10: 10493-10532. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2022491

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Game theory analysis of self-awareness and politeness

Huanhuan Guo ^1,†,
Biao Gao ^{2,†
,
,}

1.
Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University, Kobe 6578501, Japan
2.
Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang 330013, China

^† The two authors contributed equally to this work.
Academic Editor: Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest

Received: 03 May 2022 Revised: 04 July 2022 Accepted: 14 July 2022 Published: 25 July 2022

This study aims to link two related social psychology concepts, self-awareness and politeness, with human helping behavior and demonstrate it from the perspective of psychological game theory. By establishing a game theory model, and adding politeness and self-awareness as influencing factors, the Bayesian Nash equilibrium clarified people's help-seeking and help-giving behavior. As a result, we explained the relationship between politeness, self-awareness, and the willingness of the help seekers, as well as the helpers, and we can thus understand why some people do not seek help or give help. Specifically, on the one hand, from the perspective of help seekers, we found that people with a high level of self-awareness and politeness tend not to ask others for help. On the other hand, from the perspective of helpers, we found that people with a high level of self-awareness and politeness tend to help others. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of Bayesian Nash equilibrium based on psychological game theory in studying human help-seeking and help-giving behavior.
- self-awareness,
- politeness,
- helping behavior,
- Bayesian Nash equilibrium,
- psychological game theory
Citation: Huanhuan Guo, Biao Gao. Game theory analysis of self-awareness and politeness[J]. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2022, 19(10): 10493-10532. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2022491

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Abstract

This study aims to link two related social psychology concepts, self-awareness and politeness, with human helping behavior and demonstrate it from the perspective of psychological game theory. By establishing a game theory model, and adding politeness and self-awareness as influencing factors, the Bayesian Nash equilibrium clarified people's help-seeking and help-giving behavior. As a result, we explained the relationship between politeness, self-awareness, and the willingness of the help seekers, as well as the helpers, and we can thus understand why some people do not seek help or give help. Specifically, on the one hand, from the perspective of help seekers, we found that people with a high level of self-awareness and politeness tend not to ask others for help. On the other hand, from the perspective of helpers, we found that people with a high level of self-awareness and politeness tend to help others. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of Bayesian Nash equilibrium based on psychological game theory in studying human help-seeking and help-giving behavior.

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