“Two partners in crime are separated into separate rooms at the police station and given a similar deal. If one implicates the other, he may go free while the other receives a life in prison. If neither implicates the other, both are given moderate sentences, and if both implicate the other, the sentences for both are severe.”
There is rich amount of source material for this study to be taken to from the field of Game Theory. A field of applied mathematics, game theory is used in social sciences, such as economics and politics. It can be used to try to predict behaviour of groups in society. The relationship between the predictable and unpredictable in society could be a useful thread to introduce to my research project. I imagine that the main way to understand why certain things happen en masse in groups of people is to look at motivation. If a large number of people share common desires then this will motivate them to behave in some similar ways, this is the principle of advertising, but also could relate to other motivators such as fear for example. In the example above there are conflicting motivators. I am curious to find out a little more about how these factors, which are seemingly difficult to quantify, have been taken into account by these mathematicians.