Overall, the meta-reference to capitalism and capitalist systems sets the tone for how we expect the players to perform in the games. Much like recent debates on gambling in India, the games introduced in Squid Game are thought to require both luck as well as skill (and hard work) to be won. For example, the first game, 'Red Light, Green Light,' involves knowing when to move, but also depends on how others around the player are moving (which is far more random). A more concrete illustration of where behavioural sciences apply is in the voting that follows to terminate play owing to the bloodbath in the game. There is extensive work on how people vote in political science and economics, but many of them ascribe to the secret ballot assumption – that votes of each player are only known to the voter.
however, there is no secret ballot – if a majority of players agreed to end the game, then the game would end and none of the surviving players earns any prize money. Voting is open, and therefore susceptible to the model of rational herding. It is in the players' best interest to vote for the outcome they truly value, but they will continuously receive signals on which option is more popular among those who vote before them. Game theory predicts that players act 'rationally' on the basis of the signals they receive, and are more likely to vote in the same way that they observe others voting. Game theory also calls this a sequential game with full information – the last player to vote, in this case Player 1, can act rationally using the process of backward induction or simulating the game back to his own decision.
decided to conclude the games, players return to reality, but are later given an opportunity to return to the game. Although economics typically assumes a risk-neutral attitude (ie, neither risk-loving nor risk-averse), recent work in behavioural economics suggests that risk preferences (which determine how people perceive uncertain situations such as gambling) are not stable. Moreover, it has been suggested that those with a greater level of debt are likely risk-seeking (as we see from the gambling habits of the protagonist, Gi-hun), suggesting that a pool of risk-loving people are the ones that decide to return to the game. This also links up with work by Anandi Mani, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir, and Jiaying Zhao, who find that being poor significantly influences the cognitive capacity to make decisions.
Critically enough, by Episodes 2 ('Hell') and 3 ('The Man with the Umbrella'), it is clear that some players who returned to the game meet outside the game as well. This means that the game is no longer strictly among strangers, but also that each surviving player has interacted with some others at least once. Experiments in economics and psychology have since long investigated the role of anonymity in interactive games, suggesting that in some cases it significantly increases altruistic behaviours. via GIPHY From there on, we see teams forming among players, which has parallels to the seminal 1954 study by social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and colleagues, called the Robbers Cave experiment.
The study suggested early on that (arbitrary) team formation coupled with competition can quickly transform into hatred and animosity. It is also linked closely to how we view the 'out-group' – or those we perceive to be different from us. In Squid Game, the formation of teams is shown to be clearly linked with self-preservation initially, but is later used to promote in-group cohesiveness (ie, we stick together as a team). As studies in behavioural economics have suggested, this type of group formation leads to in-group favouritism and out-group discrimination in a range of behaviours – something we see in terms of team dynamics in the tug-of-war competition as well. Although studies on priming (subtle cues to alter decision-making) are inconclusive and have recently come under fire in the behavioural sciences, the ominous glow of the hanging piggy bank full of cash could also serve as a constant reminder to players of their potential winnings. As we progress through the remainder of the show, we see how the Front Man delivers redistributive justice to a cheating player (and confederates), drawing similarities to just how critical fairness and transparency are in social experiments.
By Episode 7 ('V.I.Ps'), Player 69 pleads with others to end the game by a majority vote, but owing perhaps to sunk costs or loss aversion (the exhaustion and trauma of having reached this stage, and having to give up an increasingly large prize), other players refuse this suggestion. In the game where players are required to cross over a bridge made of glass tiles in an order determined by themselves, it is by sheer luck that Gi-hun finds himself going last, which turns into his advantage.
Gi-hun can not only see which glass survives the 15 players that went before him but also has the least uncertainty involved with his decision. The decision-making in this game is under uncertainty since players must assume that the distribution of the tiles is 50-50, and make decisions on the basis of a random draw. Early experiments by economists looked at the potential for ambiguity aversion – illustrated by the Ellsberg paradox, where we avoid uncertain decisions (as illustrated by the two people who 'hold out' during the game).
Squid Game offers a novel perspective through its many games on how humans make decisions, particularly when they are under cognitive load or duress. In its many underlying tones of capitalism, it is clear that those who do what it takes to survive are rewarded, and in many ways are expected to succeed. With increasing wealth inequality around the world (Korea included), how we perceive inequality is intertwined with the kind of interventions one might support to fix the problem.
Anirudh Tagat
(The article was first published on News 9 live on the 11th of October 2021. https://www.news9live.com/art-culture/netflix-squid-game-korean-behavioural-economics-psychology-characters-decisions-125504)
