The quantum model of social decision-making

The shift from individual agent to group perspective, the major unsolved problem in social psychology, precludes realistic models of human decision-making for autonomous agents. Allport was not alone in recognizing this problem. Luce and Raiffa concluded that traditional mathematical logic based on the individual rational perspective, exemplified by the independent uncertainties in game theory between actors and observers as they interact, had been unable to capture social processes such as decision-making. Group theorists, such as Levine and Moreland, agree that a new model must be constructed to replace the individual rational model, primarily aggregated individual self-report data from decision participants or their scientific observers, to study unseen effects of social interaction, like Giddens' identification of unintended social consequences from intentional behavior. Philosophers have long recognized aspects of this problem with Aristotle's distinction between mathematics and physical objects to Descartes mind-body dualism and James' complementarity between thinking and action. But the problem remains unsolved and largely ignored. Our approach is to develop Bohr's social quantum model (SQM), to our knowledge, the only theory to model the conjugate uncertainties that exist interdependently between actors and observers entangled in an interaction. With SQM, the immediate goal is to derive and explore the role of argumentation in social decision-making; the ultimate goal is to develop and apply a general theory of social groups.