Eyal Winter, Ph.D.

Project

Game Theoretic Models of Social Media

During the past several decades, social media have changed modern society, but the influence of academic research on social media’s practices and policies has been limited. The purpose of my research project is to use game theoretic and behavioral economic modeling to understand the incentives and motives behind the behavior of social media platforms and their users. Game theory and behavioral economics are two academic disciplines that are very relevant for studying social media’s policies. Game theory is the theory of interactive decision making. Through many decades of research, the field has produced plenty of analytical tools that allow us to understand better how different policies may affect behavior. In recent years the sub-fields of mechanism design and network theory flourished, and tools/results that are more specifically relevant for policy making in the sphere of social media have been developed. Behavioral economics (which emerged from game theory) brings psychological and sociological aspects into the discussion, as well as empirical tools such as lab and field experiments. Game theory and behavioral economics are my main fields of interest. In recent years my work has been highly interdisciplinary and I have published jointly with economists, psychologists, legal studies people, and computer scientists. During my fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg I intend to study incentive mechanisms for online social networks and interact with other Fellows in the institute with a similar interest. In addition to standard game theoretic analysis, we will address relevant behavioral biases (such as confirmation bias or ingroup-outgroup bias) to reflect on some of the anomalies that take place in social media and to suggest remedies. We hope that the by-products of our studies will help to improve the quality of content that appears on social media, increase the efficiency and fairness of social media practices, and eventually improve users’ benefits and experience from their interactions on social media.

Recommended Reading

Winter, Eyal. “Incentives and Discrimination.” American Economic Review 94, no. 3 (2004): 764–773.
–. Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational than We Think. New York: PublicAffairs Publishing, 2014. German: Kluge Gefühle: Warum Angst, Wut und Liebe rationaler sind, als wir denken. Translated by Harald Stadler. Cologne: DuMont, 2015.
Nora, Vladyslav, and Eyal Winter. “Exploiting Social Influence in Networks.” Theoretical Economics 19 (2024): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.3982/TE5068.

Colloquium, 28.05.2025

Feeling Smart: Why our Emotions are More Rational than We Think

Why can’t we behave more rationally? Compared with the idealized image of “The Thinker,” evolution seems to have left us with a host of apparent flaws. What possible advantage is there in getting angry? In a world as ruthlessly competitive as ours, why do we ever feel humility? Why do we blush—drawing attention to ourselves—precisely when we most want to disappear out of shame? Why do we cling to the ideal of loyalty, or risk our lives by volunteering for dangerous missions? There are countless things we do that a purely rational mind like Mr. Spock’s would likely reject, and yet, if we stopped doing them, we would no longer be human. I will present some answers to these questions based on my own research and that of other behavioral scientists, highlighting the rationality behind emotional behavior. I will also discuss some of the biological mechanisms that facilitate interactive emotions.

Publications from the Fellow Library

Winter, Eyal (NOxford [u.a.], 2024)

Exploiting social influence in networks

Winter, Eyal (Hanover, Md, 2017)

Mental equilibrium and strategic emotions

Winter, Eyal (Köln, 2015)

Kluge Gefühle : warum Angst, Wut und Liebe rationaler sind, als wir denken Feeling smart <dt.>

Winter, Eyal (Nashville, Tenn., 2004)

Incentives and discrimination