Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” as a psychological trust game with guilt and reciprocity

Abstract

From a game-theoretic point of view, “A Doll’s House” displays a trust game. A classic game-theoretic approach enables to model the behavior of the characters but it does not suffice to explain it since neither the backward induction solution of the game nor its efficient solution correspond to their decisions in the story. A psychological game-theoretic approach helps to explain the choices for it takes into account guilt aversion and reciprocity considerations.