Employing Games of Partial Information for Understanding Microaggressive Conflicts

Abstract

The term microaggression is used to describe everyday ambiguous slights or “put downs” that communicate discrimination toward a person belonging to a marginalized group. Longstanding critiques of the term have included unclear conceptual boundaries, forced casual linkages to mental health effects, and inadequate contextual criteria for identifying their occurrences. Recent research suggests that employing linguistic principles such as syntax, semantics, and pragmatics can help build an interactive examination for the study of conditions that influence a microaggressive encounter. Situated games of partial information are necessary for a computationally-tractable analysis of the textual, contextual, and interdependent features of ambiguous communicative exchanges. Thus, this chapter describes a microaggressive exchange between communicators by using situated games of partial information. Specifically, I detail a conversation excerpt where a microaggression emerged during a social interaction. I show how a communicator can interpret a message as discriminatory by examining the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors of the microaggression through games of partial information. This approach invites communicators to account for the many probabilistic conditions that inform a microaggressive exchange so that they can begin to repair discriminatory comments without defaulting to prescriptive responses that potentially escalate social hostility.

1. Introduction

“You’re such an inspiration!”; “Aren’t you being oversensitive?”; “You’re crazy!” Perhaps you have experienced a situation where you may have received one of these well-meaning “put downs.” Nearly 50 years of research in the field of psychology has attempted to capture how groups of people experience these everyday, ambiguous slights known as microaggressions. These subtle, automatic, often unconscious messages communicate denigration toward people who identify with and belong to marginalized groups [1, 2]. While well-intentioned to mean “no harm done,” any person who communicates a microaggression to a receiver is often unaware that what is said or done can produce distressing effects in the receiver’s mind and body. Such messages illuminate dynamic tensions of systemic oppression such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, etc., and how such structures influence the way people behave in their social interactions [3, 4]. In recent years, communication researchers have veered away from psychology to data-driven analyses of linguistic principles such as syntax, semantics, and pragmatics to build interactive examinations for the study of conditions that influence a microaggressive encounter [5, 6, 7, 8].

This chapter attends to one type of pragmatic analysis for the study of microaggressions using game theory as a guiding tool. It describes a microaggressive exchange between communicators by using situated games of partial information. Specifically, I detail a conversation excerpt where a disability microaggression emerged during a social interaction—a relatively understudied type of microaggression in current works [9]. First, I outline a few assumptions of situated games of partial information as it applies to microaggressions. Next, I describe a brief encounter of a naturally occurring disability microaggression in an organizational setting. Finally, I analyze what may have contributed to this encounter. I show how a communicator can interpret a message as discriminatory by attending to the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors of the microaggression. This approach invites communicators to account for the many probabilistic conditions that inform a microaggressive exchange so that they can begin to repair discriminatory comments without defaulting to prescriptive responses that potentially escalate social hostility [7, 10].

2. Microaggressions and game theory

Most criticisms of microaggression research have called these subtle snubs both imaginary and trivial. In fact, longstanding critiques of the term have included unclear conceptual boundaries, forced casual linkages to mental health effects, and inadequate contextual criteria for identifying their occurrences [11]. A lack of clear operationalization in psychological experimentation to delineate specific message structures as microaggressive has prevented this research area from expanding; this is because biases, varying degrees of consciousness, and speaker intentions are not easily operationalizable to control variables [12]. Communication research has attempted analyses of pragmatics—e.g., the grammars, tones, contexts, turn-taking, etc. [13]—to resolve such critiques [5, 8]. Nonetheless, the scarcity of contributions to this niche research area has beseeched scholars to contemplate new methodological approaches to fully capture the factors that influence the prejudicial nature of these inexplicit, ambiguous, and harmful messages.

One way to attend to the pragmatics of microaggressive communication patterns in social interactions is through game theory. Game theory, or multi-person choice theory, is the mathematical study of strategic interaction between independent, self-interested individuals [14]. Thus, this particular mathematics is equipped to explain how a communicator’s choice of a social action is influenced by the actions of other communicators during a situation (and is also influenced by the hidden markers of biases, prejudices, intentions, and degrees of consciousness in a communicator). Communication scholars first restricted this mathematics to the study of interpersonal conflicts [15]. However, game theory is valuable for assessing all types of complex communicative processes, regardless of the situation, including nuanced encounters such as microaggressive ones. It offers a vehicle for understanding how everyday communication can become power-laden, harmful, discomforting, and silencing for some persons who identify along marginalized societal lines.

Most mathematical models have historically aimed to describe communication dynamics in social interactions disjointly, focusing more so on context-free approaches to the study of social interactions [16]. Game theory, however, attends to the interdependent ways microaggressions act to draw on text and context to invalidate personal cultural identities and sociopolitical experiences [6, 7, 17]. Text is the tangible sentences that obtain messages, which act as well-behaved, rule-governed objects for conveying a communicator’s intentions and information [18]. Context includes the (often unspecifiable) circumstances that regulate what meanings emerge and attach to messages, which includes referents, symbols, discourses, histories, and smaller sequences of conversations [17, 19]. The situatedness in communication presents a unique scientific challenge because microaggressions thrive off of incomplete, ambiguous information between senders and receivers [12]. Game theory offers a context-sensitive approach and computationally-tractable analysis of the textual, contextual, and indeterminate features of these problematic communicative exchanges [17, 19]. In other words, it can highlight what conditions may produce and influence the discomforting “content” during microaggressive conflicts if we were to examine how ambiguity dictates the social actions for both the sender and receiver in these situations. I offer a way of examining microaggressions, specifically, through situated games of partial information [7, 17, 18, 19].

2.1 Microaggressions as situated games of partial information

Game theory treats social interactions as games, or well-defined mathematical objects consisting of distinct characteristics [14]. I define a game as a type of communicative activity that includes the following six elements [20]:

1. Communicators: The number of rational-thinking individuals present during an interaction as well as their respective turns.

2. Actions: What do communicators do when they interact with each other? How long do they talk? What questions should they ask? What words do they say?

3. Situations: Communicators enter an interaction believing different assumptions about what’s going on. This includes what (and how many) actions communicators think they can use to interact with each other. This can vary per communicator.

4. Initial probabilities: Communicators subconsciously assess the effectiveness of their choices before making them. They weigh what kinds of meanings their words and messages have before expressing them. Each communicative choice varies in how well it will be received and interpreted.

5. Information sets: What kinds of knowledge do communicators bring to the situation? This can be both personal and shared knowledge about contexts. Communicators use what they know to decide what choices to make. This can range from their personal histories, cultural understandings, or what social rules they use when interacting.

6. Payoffs: These are the outcomes of a situation. A communicator may interpret a word, message, or action in several ways. This all depends on what a person’s underlying preference is during an interaction. Do they want to cooperate? Do they want to have conflict? What would be the costs or benefits?

These six elements must be accounted for in some manner when analyzing microaggressive communication through games.

There are also two unique pragmatic properties that microaggressions obtain, which complicate comprehension and cooperation during a social interaction. The first property is irrationality. One assumption in game theory is that communicators interact with each other through logical thoughts and behaviors. Unfortunately, communicators are sometimes irrational, and behave in a way that reflects their hidden biases, heightened emotions, and unconscious intentions [17]. People may not know why they say or do the things they communicate during an interaction. The second property is indeterminacy, or uncertainty. Most people assume the other party will cooperate. The presence of indeterminacy means a person’s intentions can never be known, social rules people follow when interacting are never explicit, and communicators perceive what is happening in a situation uniquely. Both properties make it possible for microaggressive encounters to be noncooperative and unresolvable.

Some linguists suggest microaggressions likely equate to Bayesian game classification problems or strategic games of incomplete information [6, 17]. Under this assumption, communicators do not share a common understanding of the situation between them—yet, they do share the same kinds of communication strategies and social rules on how to interact with each other. As previously mentioned, this is not always the case, especially when irrationality and indeterminacy are in the mix. Intercultural nuances in language imply that people do not always operate with the same social rules or ways of communicating; people misunderstand each other, make assumptions about each other’s identities, or are vague when crafting messages. Thus, people interact more from a space of partial information: they communicate with various types of strategies, follow different social rules, and draw on multiple types of background knowledge and biases to inform their choices in a social interaction, sometimes even hidden from their own personal awareness [17, 19]. The more appropriate way to conceptualize microaggressions is through situated games of partial information, or games of noncooperation where communicators draw from varying degrees of personal and contextual knowledge. I outline the framework necessary to examine a microaggression encounter through a game of partial information (for a deeper reading, construction, and outline of the framework, see [17, 19]).

2.2 The framework

Understanding how and when microaggressions occur is a complex and unpredictable process. Examinations of microaggressive encounters must include the social interaction, the context, and the larger discourses that shape what is happening between communicators. Microaggressive social interactions as situated games occur on two levels. First, they occur through the little-d, microdiscourses of conversation, or the particulars of talk and text. Second, they occur through the big-D, macrodiscourses, or the larger institutional and cultural practices, the sociopolitical ideologies, and historical narratives that influence and are influenced by conversations communicators have with each other [7, 19]. These two levels create a circular process for conveying and interpreting messages between communicators [19]. There are four large interlocking parts (or steps) needed for dissecting a microaggressive event, according to reference [19]: the (a) Setting Game, (b) Content Selection Game, (c) Generation or Encoding Game, and (d) Interpretation or Decoding Game. The overall communication process for playing situated games is shown in Figure 1. Each number indicates a “step” in the process between communicators.

Figure 1.

Communication process for playing situated games.

The first game is the Setting Game. Communicators play an unconscious game that attends to cultural, historical, and political ideologies that guide social rules for interacting. Step 1. This game starts when some situation or circumstance compels communicators to interact with each other. Step 2. The setting then triggers communicators either (a) to send messages so that ideas can be exchanged or (b) to elicit an action or response. The Setting Game acts as a decision problem of some kind [19]. It dictates what kinds of obvious (or hidden) goals and subgoals communicators have and whether they want to cooperate with each other. The Setting Game is nebulous and therefore is better as a descriptive account for analyzers of microaggressive situations. Analyzers should describe what constrains and explains the interplay between communicators and what their future actions might be like. Microaggressive encounters can begin the moment communicators enter a similar environment and use that environment to interact with each other.

Second, once communicators decide to send messages or elicit responses from each other, they enter a Content Selection Game. Step 3. Communicators tap into their information sets to draw from an assortment of vocabularies, languages, biases, ideas, discourses, histories, presuppositions, social rules, and so on. Step 4. Then, they play a quick, thinking game to decide what combinations of words will best craft a message that fulfills their intentions (or rather, optimizes their content). Of course, this game is tricky because communicators do not always know how someone will respond to a message until its expressed [19]. Further, biases and emotions can complicate what words to choose (i.e., messages always sound better in the mind until they are uttered). This game is about assessing what personal knowledge communicators use to engage with each other. Because analyzers do not know what communicators are thinking (and sometimes even communicators do not know what their own thoughts are about), this game can only be speculated through uttered conversation. Analyzers should segment full conversations into shorter parts, providing enough of the conversation to scrutinize the microaggressive encounter and to contextualize the setting.

Third, once a communicator selects the best content they want to convey from a setting, they enter the Generation or Encoding Game. Step 5. Communicators think about (and sort through) possible alternatives to the message they want to express; they imagine how someone might respond to and interpret their alternatives [19]. Of course, communicators narrow down their choices to one message because they want to express the best one. Step 6. Based on the various types of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors that can optimize their choice in the current utterance situation, called u (as indicated by the dotted-line box in the center of Figure 1), communicators then use a shared language, like English or Spanish, to express their chosen message [17, 19]. Most analyses of games typically focus on the messages uttered; however, the Encoding Game is unique in that it considers alternative messages that were crafted, but not uttered. In other words, communicators who encode and send messages have multiple starting points (rather than only one). Thinking about alternative messages may stem from explicit and implicit biases for a communicator; these alternatives dictate whether a receiver of a message will cooperate or not with the sender. Thus, communicators are (sometimes) careful to construct and send their messages during a social interaction so it does not lead to noncooperation like that in a microaggressive conflict. Analyzers should account for the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the messages uttered in a conversation segment; additionally, analyzers should consider possible alternative messages communicators may have thought to use.

Finally, a communicator who receives a message will play the Interpretation or Decoding Game. Step 7. This game can happen either sequentially or simultaneously with the Encoding Game. Essentially, once a sender expresses their chosen message, it becomes the receiver’s turn. Step 8. Receivers must infer what content is being conveyed. Step 9. So, they return to their own Content Selection Game to infer what other information is influencing the situation in order to craft their own best responses [19]. Most game-theoretic analyses account for how receivers interpret a sender’s message when there is complete information available to them. Because the receiver in a microaggressive situation does not know a sender’s intentions or biases when a message is communicated, analysis of the Decoding Game must account for how a receiver interprets incomplete or partial information. That is, it must consider how receivers make sense of a message based off alternative messages that could have been expressed by the sender to communicate a hidden intention. Step 10. After thinking through and selecting content to infer an interpretation, receivers decide what combinations of words can be used to best craft a response. Step 11. Receivers will start their own Generation or Encoding Game, thinking through alternative ways to frame their response. Step 12. At last, they select the best response based on what was inferred by the original message. Step 13. Both communicators return to the Setting Game and repeat the process in a back-and-forth, turn-taking style until the interaction ends.

These four interlocking games build a structure for analyzing the particulars of talk while regarding partial information that stems from hidden biases, ideologies, histories, and contexts. Data from naturally occurring conversations reify these conceptual games into tangible ones to be used for a precise examination of the many pragmatic conditions that contribute to a microaggressive encounter. The next section describes a brief, recorded, conversation segment of a microaggressive social interaction I had with an American Red Cross (ARC) representative to discuss an organizational issue during the height of COVID-19 pandemic.

3. The case of the American red cross

I employ situated games of partial information for examining how a disability microaggression unfurled from a specific, 50-minute, communicative exchange I had with an ARC representative. I briefly discuss the Setting Game and a specific excerpt that is appropriate for understanding the Content Selection Game. I end by analyzing the turn-taking between the Generation and Interpretation Game to understand how communicators generally label a message as a microaggression.

3.1 The setting game

The American Red Cross is a non-profit humanitarian organization that offers several opportunities for education and training in emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness. One example of this would be providing education and certification for safety in aquatic environments such as pools, beachfronts, water parks, and so on. The American Red Cross prides itself as being one of the main organizations for certifying everyday patrons to become lifeguards across many regions in the United States. It also prides itself in providing training and certification for individuals to become Water Safety Instructors, or teachers who can demonstrate to young children, teens, and adults how to swim proficiently and safely in aquatic environments. Every 2 years, ARC instructors in the United States must recertify their credentials by teaching courses and/or attending in-person review assessments of their teaching skills.

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the ARC updated their main website and their overall record-keeping system. The transition to the new management system meant that, for several instructors across the United States, their digital records were either misplaced, expunged, or marked as “expired.” At one point, I had noticed my Water Safety Instructor certification was no longer active in the digital system (i.e., it was labeled as expired). Even though I had completed annual recertifications to maintain my credentials, the new record-keeping management system should have some information about the online whereabouts of my credentials such that it would display as active and not as expired.

Confused, I called an ARC representative to discuss the issue after a string of email exchanges with a customer service representative failed to resolve the issue. In other words, the setting compelled us to interact with each other through conversation to solve the problem at hand. Both of us entered this space to resolve the conflict, aiming to understand and problem-solve how the certificate had been marked as expired. Both of us were knowledgeable about the ARC as an organization and its policies, the recent transition that occurred to update the overall system, and what barriers had emerged in the organization and for instructors across the United States because of the pandemic. Our goals and subgoals during the 50-minute telephone conversation were to engage in cooperation while resolving the issue pertaining to credentials.

3.2 The content selection game: an excerpt

Once I connected with the ARC representative, we began to discuss the problem over the telephone. The following is a brief excerpt of the conversation leading up to what I perceived to be a disability microaggression. While the microaggression is part of both the Encoding and Decoding Games, the conversation informs the types of turn-taking, assumptions, and possible emotions that contributed to this game. It goes as follows:

[18:13] ARC Rep: OK. …. here’s what I’ve looked up. I went ahead and looked up your information that we have in the system.

[18:43] Me: OK.

[18:44] ARC Rep: Your Water Safety Instructor certification was expired, correct?

[18:50] Me: Well, it should not be expired. That’s the thing. It was showing that it was.

[18:55] ARC Rep: OK, it’s showing it was expired in 2018…. So, if you have any proof—which I believe you—if you have any proof at all…I can go in and get this fixed…. But I will need to have proof that shows that you recertified in 2018 because, as of what our system shows, it says that you expired.

[20:33] Me: [pause] … Yeah.

For most readers, this may seem like a regular exchange between two communicators working to solve a technological issue. However, for some readers, this segment aligns with a microaggressive moment (as was the case for me). The use of the word “proof” by the ARC rep follows one of eight themes from a recognized disability microaggression taxonomy: denial of a disability-related experience [9]. In the study that developed the taxonomy, one focus group interviewee had stated, “Because I don’t have an outward disability, people don’t necessarily believe me. I’ve had to deal with that all my life, and I’ve had to give proof” [9]. This also follows a “do not look sick” cultural assumption that people with invisible disabilities must prove through documentation that their bodily experiences (around disability) are valid and not imaginary [21]. Even when a person’s disability is not the central contextual focus of a conversation, such as in the excerpt above, using the word “proof” when communicating a message can function in a similar fashion to invalidate a person’s lived experience or perceptual reality (despite being told “I believe you”). It is an effort by perpetrators (whether they meant to use it in a denigrating way or not) to deny responsibility for any difficulties an inaccessible barrier might create [9]. Receivers can experience emotions of discouragement or confusion; the turn-taking here shows an imbalance between how much each communicator says. Thus, ableist assumptions, power differentials, and mismatched emotions are some of the potential pragmatic factors that inform how the communicators might have selected the content for their messages. Encoding and Decoding Games help to specify these contents’ whereabouts (and make sense of how a word can trigger a microaggression for some people while not for others).

3.3 The generation (encoding) game

The Generation or Encoding Game is about turning speaker intentions into an expressed message. This also classifies the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of a message and considers the likelihood a message carries a sender’s intentions accurately across what is being conveyed.

3.3.1 The syntax

First, we need turn to the syntax of a message, or the parts of speech. If we were to focus on “proof” as the triggering word, we notice that “proof” is being used as a noun in the message “I will need to have proof” and “If you have any proof at all” (I will focus on the first example for simplicity). In Ref. [17, 19], the algebraic system (T, •) is used to describe a context-free grammar G as a system of syntax parse trees (or string of words, phrases, and whole sentences) with a product operation. So, let t symbolize a syntactic parse of a word (e.g., “proof” functions as a noun). Also, let • be an operator that “chains” together the syntactic parses of words into a full syntax parse tree for a sentence S (i.e., it “multiplies” parses of words together to form a string, such as t_i • t_j = t_it_j where i and j are indexes for the order of a word in a sentence) [19]. In the sentence “I will need to have proof,” the word “proof” has the following parse in Eq. (1):

$${\mathit{t}}_{\mathit{6}}=\left[{}_{\mathit{\text{Noun}}}\text{PROOF}\right]$$E1

Because “proof” is the sixth word in the sentence, and only functions as a noun, it has one syntactic parse. Every other word in the sentence also has its own unique parse and function in the full sentence of the message. Together, each word’s parse becomes t₁t₂t₃t₄t₅t₆ = φ, where φ denotes the entire expressed utterance, “I will need to have proof,” which stems from a natural language $\mathcal{L}$. The full utterance can also be represented uniquely as a string of words such as φ₁ ∘ φ₂ ∘ φ₃ ∘ φ₄ ∘ φ₅ ∘ φ₆, where ∘ denotes a “grammatical concatenation” operation used to generate the content of the utterance, “I will need to have proof” (this means ($\mathcal{L}$, ∘) is an algebraic system to describe a given language) [19]. Therefore, “proof” can also be represented as follows in Eq. (2):

$${\text{φ}}_6=\text{PROOF}\to \left[{}_{\mathit{\text{Noun}}}\text{PROOF}\right]={\mathit{t}}_{\mathit{6}}$$E2

The symbol → acts as a syntactic map for transforming words into their possible speech parses. Classifying syntax narrows down the many possible denotations and connotations a word could mean (“proof” can sometimes be used as an adjective or verb), making game analysis an easier process.

3.3.2 The semantics

Second, we turn to semantics, or the dictionary definitions and contextual referents for the noun, “proof.” In this example, “proof” has one dictionary meaning that fits: “evidence that establishes a fact or the truth about a statement.” Also in this example, “proof” has at least two contextual meanings—one that means “certification” and the other “verification.” Both are distinct because the first refers to the ARC Water Safety Instructor certificate and the other refers to verifying a perspective, a lived experience, or a way of understanding what is happening in a conversation. Both are needed to understand intention.

Formally, the word “proof” is first mapped into its dictionary or conventional meaning (whether that be a property, P, or a relation, R, of language $\mathcal{L}$) with a conventional map, denoted by → [17, 19]. The conventional meaning of the word “proof” is then mapped into its two contextual or referential meanings relative to some contextually-bounded utterance situation called u via a referential map, denoted by →_u [17, 19]. So, “proof” can be represented semantically as follows:

$$1.\text{Referential}\mathrm{Use}:{\text{φ}}_6\to {\mathrm{P}}^{\text{φ6}}\to {}_{\mathit{u}}{\text{σ}}_6.$$

$$2.\text{Referential}\mathrm{Use}:{\text{φ}}_6\to {\mathrm{P}}^{\text{φ6}}\to {}_{\mathit{u}}{{\text{σ}}_6}^{’}.$$

The symbols, σ₆ and σ₆′, denote the possible semantic values for φ₆ = PROOF in the current setting (i.e., obtaining a property that either means “certification” or “verification”). Every other word also has their own unique conventional and referential meanings. Together, these meanings create the possible “contents” of an utterance given the situation where the utterance is expressed.

3.3.3 The pragmatics

Third is the pragmatics, or what is being implied over what is said and done. Because there are at least two ways the word could be interpreted, “proof,” when used in an utterance, could either imply (a) (→) [We need a certificate to match our records] or (b) (→) [We need to validate that you are not faking your experience].

In mathematical notation, the word “proof” can obtain two pragmatic issues that need resolving. They are as follows in Eq. (3) and Eq. (4):

1. Implied Meaning (a) with respect to pragmatic issue:

   $${\mathit{\text{φ}}}_7=\mathit{\text{φ}}={\mathit{\text{φ}}}_1{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_2{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_3{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_4{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_5{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_6\to {}_{\mathit{\text{u}}}{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_1{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_2{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_3{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_4{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_5{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_6\to {}_{\mathit{\text{u}}}{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_7$$E3

2. Implied Meaning (b) with respect to pragmatic issue:

   $${\mathit{\text{φ}}}_7=\mathit{\text{φ}}={\mathit{\text{φ}}}_1{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_2{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_3{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_4{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_5{\mathit{\text{φ}}}_6\to {}_{\mathit{\text{u}}}{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_1{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_2{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_3{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_4{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_5{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_6\to {}_{\mathit{\text{u}}}{\mathrm{\text{σ}}}_7’$$E4

The symbols, σ₇ and σ₇′, denote how the utterance “I will need to have proof” transforms its syntactic and semantic contents into the two implied meanings (→) [We need a certificate to match our records] and [We need to validate that you are not faking your experience], which aim to resolve the pragmatic issues of communication happening in this utterance situation u [19]. While these two implied meanings are triggered by the word “proof,” they are fully supported by the entire utterance because it requires all the words of the utterance to imply meaning beyond what is being stated.

While the ARC rep clarified their intention, the word “proof” can still be triggering for someone (like myself) who has been told countless times to prove the existence of their body, their disabilities, and their experiences. Microaggressions hold a unique property of being cumulative over many unrelated interactions [1, 2, 4]. In other words, receiving the word “proof” to mean “verification of one’s own lived experience” countless times across different contexts and situations can acquire a denigrating meaning for persons with disabilities (even during times when the word “proof” is not being used in a situation to mean “verification”).

The classification of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics for the word “proof” outlined in this section is a condensed version of a full Encoding Game. In actuality, communicators play an Encoding Game for each word, phrase, and utterance being expressed in a conversation. I have chosen to focus efforts on the word “proof” for the purpose of outlining the two implied meanings, which are necessary for the Decoding Game. It is possible to see how a communicator can decode a message and label it as a microaggression when partial information exists inside a situation.

3.4 The interpretation (decoding) game

The Interpretation or Decoding Game disambiguates (or clarifies) the content from a message’s syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic possibilities [19]. It accounts for how communicators interact: how they send, interpret, and respond to messages while text, context, irrationality, and indeterminacy are interwoven into and evolving throughout the social interaction.

Define G to be a game of possible social actions between communicators in the current utterance situation u. Define g as a mathematical function of G that transforms the words, phrases, and implied meanings of an utterance into a game (g is a container for syntax (t), the text (φ), and context (σ)) [17, 19]. As a receiver, I can decide whether I want to cooperate with the ARC rep and interpret “proof” as either the implied meaning (a) or (b) from above. I could also choose to not cooperate and be conflictual (meaning, I could misunderstand his message and could respond in a way that escalates the tension and power differentials between us). Focusing on the implied meanings, we have the following in Eq. (5):

$${\mathit{\text{g}}}_7\left(\text{Implied Meaning of Utterance}\right)={\mathit{\text{g}}}_7$$E5

The function, g₇, transforms the implied meanings into an algebraic game that aims to resolve the pragmatic issues discussed earlier, and does so through a game, or specifically through “game 7.” Using game transformations adds content such as pragmatics to create a context-sensitive grammar. These functions also stem from the algebraic system (G, ⊗), where the symbol ⊗ denotes a game multiplication operation that multiplies together the many possible syntactic, lexical, phrasal, sentential, semantic, and pragmatic games of an utterance [17, 19]. The games act as “go-betweens” for understanding how receivers interpret and respond to a sender’s message(s). Because microaggressions stem primarily from a discernment (and frequent disagreement) of implied meanings in a message, I will focus this Interpretation Game to game 7 for simplicity. The overall game is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Game resolving the pragmatic issue in utterance.

The top half represents the real situation (what happened). The game begins with the ARC rep, noted by a square. The square is labeled with the type of initial situation, $s_{\mathit{\text{real}}}$, and the probability, $p_{\mathit{\text{real}}}$, or the chance the ARC rep conveys “certification” as their intention when saying “proof” in an utterance. It’s then my turn as the receiver. This is noted by the circle, $r_{\mathit{\text{real}}}$, in the responding situation¹. There are two possible outcomes. Either I cooperate and interpret the message as (a) because I think “proof” means “certification.” Or, I decide not to cooperate and instead interpret the message as (b), leading to conflict. Clearly the payoff² A (where we both benefit) is better than B (where we both could end up with a cost) because I want my interpretation to align with the ARC rep’s intention.

However, let us assume the opposite. The bottom half represents an alternative situation, one where the ARC rep may have some hidden motives (even unknown to themselves) for using the word “proof.” The game would begin again with the ARC rep in the alternative situation, $s_{\mathit{alt}}$, with probability³, $p_{\mathit{alt}}$, or the chance the ARC rep conveys “verification” as their intention when saying “proof.” When it is my turn (represented by $r_{\mathit{alt}}$), I once again have two outcomes to choose from, but they are treated differently because the intention this time might be more ill-natured. Either I interpret the message as (a), which means I’m not cooperating (and I’m lying to myself, thinking the ARC rep is a good person that did not micro-aggress me). Or, I interpret the message as (b) because I think “proof” means “verification.” If I choose (b), I cooperate, which could spark further conflict because I know that the ARC rep was intending to be ill-natured when sending their message. This may also explain my pause and response of “… Yeah” after the ARC rep spoke. Those who recognize themselves in a lower status or minoritized position of power may hesitate to respond (or stay silent) when conversing with someone of a higher status who expresses a problematic or troublesome utterance [7, 10]. Although seemingly counterintuitive, D is better than C because I want us to cooperate (even if I know a heated discussion is possible afterwards).

This game shows how an implied meaning from an utterance can be interpreted in a way to arrive at a disability microaggression (e.g., represented by the payoffs B or D). My response of “… Yeah,” highlights my own hesitancy in processing what I received as a message from the ARC rep. In the moment, the ambiguity heightened power asymmetries, emotional confusion, and communicative hesitancies. I discover later in the same conversation the ARC rep used other word combinations that suggested an ableist bias hidden in their intention. In which case, the outcome C in the alternative situation could have been the actual best payoff for us both (i.e., because he holds power, I must interpret a message as if it did not have an ableist bias or logic embedded into its content—otherwise I risk escalating conflict or a quick end to our conversation).

4. Conclusion

This chapter offered a shortened, pragmatic analysis of microaggressions using game theory as a guiding tool. I described how situated games of partial information [17, 19] can be used to understand how microaggressive messages obtain their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic contents during social interactions. In other words, these types of games are helpful for classifying and explaining how senders and receivers of communication make decisions when given ambiguous conditioning variables. It requires an understanding of the setting, the way communicators select content such as ideologies, discourses, referents, etc. from that setting, and encode and decode those contents when exchanging messages through turn-taking [19]. I detailed a conversation excerpt between myself and an American Red Cross representative, which led to the emergence of a potential disability microaggression during our social interaction. Partial information games offer a holistic approach for recognizing how unknown speaker intentions can be mismatched with a receiver’s interpretations during ambiguous moments of communication [7, 17, 18, 19].

To be clear, this particular chapter covers a simplified version of the complex dynamics in a conversation. Essentially, it covers only one game of the many that are being played simultaneously, sequentially, and nonlinearly on a syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic level of interaction. The reader should consider a few things. First is calculating the chance that the ARC rep is being well-meaning or ill-natured with their intentions. The conversation excerpt provides some context for the turn-taking; however, most conversations do not offer an exactness of a sender’s intention nor a reason why a receiver responds in the way they do. Situated games of partial information can also be applied to the whole turn-taking process in the conversation excerpt (and not only to a word, phrase, or utterance). This means these games are being played on micro-, meso-, and macrolevels for interactants. Second is developing a particularized solution to the problem above, rather than relying solely on payoffs. The two aforementioned payoffs B and D from the Decoding Game are not absolute; a particularized solution for labeling a message as a microaggression depends on many other unknowable factors influencing the situation. This means to consider what other conversational turn-taking factors might influence what is happening around the word “proof” and the utterance(s) that carry its contents. These issues are addressed beyond the scope of this chapter. For more information about developing a particularized solution for the contents of messages, see reference [17, 19].

Ultimately, the importance of a pragmatic analysis of microaggressive exchanges is to repair discriminatory comments without defaulting to prescriptive, psychotherapeutic responses (e.g., “I” statements) that potential escalate hostility in social situations [7, 10]. Current repair work focuses on a context-free, atheoretical approach that does not attend to how communicators weigh the relational and social contents of their talk and turn-taking strategies [10]. Game theory demonstrates a few ways to formalize a theoretical approach for explaining what people are doing with their communication, how people understand the content of their communication, why people might interpret and internalize messages as microaggressive given particularized contexts, and how to repair microaggressions during a social interaction without defaulting to communicative scripts that do nothing for de-escalating the heightened emotions in a situation [7]. We get a better sense of how and why people respond to microaggressions in the way that they do and how they might avoid repairing such conflicts when game theory is grounding our comprehension of social situations in a generalizable manner.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.