Understanding Human Behaviour: Introduction to Game Theory and Shared Resources (FutureLearn)

Explore the issues humans face when sharing and cooperating, and use game theory, models, and simulations to identify solutions. Expand your understanding of social sciences. This four-week course will help you explore why sharing goods or tasks is difficult. You’ll enrich your understanding of the problems people have when they share and cooperate, and examine essential models that can support you in your future career in social sciences and beyond.

Enroll in course

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Discover social solutions to help tackle different problems

You’ll have a close-up look at situations when actions (that are rational from an individual point of view) lead to non-optimal social outcomes.

Investigating the mechanisms that underlie the common action and public goods problems, you’ll gain an insight into the behavioural dynamics affecting the ecological crisis we currently face.

You’ll also explore some social solutions to tackle such problems and reflect on the importance of strengthening social ties, norms, social control, sanctions, and institutions.

Understand how to use computational modelling to face challenges

You’ll explore social computation and computational modelling as a useful methodology. With this knowledge, you’ll systematically study the interactions between individual behaviour, group behaviour, and public goods.

Apply game theory and agent-based modelling (ABM) - without prior mathematical or programming skills

You’ll apply the basic concepts from game theory to explain some of the mechanisms behind the overuse of natural resources. This will then help you explore some potential solutions going forward.

Throughout the course, you will use examples, animations, and game-like tools, designed by the experts from University of Warsaw and University of Groningen – no mathematical and programming skills are required!

Syllabus

Week 1: The challenges of cooperation

Week 2: Free riders and the Tragedy of the Commons

Week 3: Problems with renewable goods

Week 4: How to succeed in managing ecological resources

Learning on this course

You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Discuss the problem of conflict between individual and collective rationality using examples.

- Apply the basic concepts from game theory to explain some of the mechanisms leading to the ecological crisis and its potential solutions.

- Solve simple games using basic game theoretical tools.

- Experiment with a simple agent-based model by changing the properties of the existing components.

- Identify the opportunities computational models and simulations offer to help study complicated social processes.

- Evaluate possible solutions to problems related to public goods with the help of computational modelling.
Who is the course for?

This course is designed for anyone interested in understanding human behaviour, especially when sharing and cooperation are involved.

It will be particularly useful for professionals dealing with challenges related to public goods, common resources, and cooperation.

If you are studying social sciences and are curious how a computational approach works, this course will be particularly helpful. If you are an academic teacher with no prior experience with this approach yet and you’re considering enriching your own courses, we encourage you to take the course, and use the materials for your students.