Robbing the many to pay the one – game theory and temptation with Carlos Alós-Ferrer

In this episode we are talking about corporate scandals, selfishness, and how game theory can help us understand when people give in to temptation. Carlos Alós-Ferrer explains how his "Big Robber" experiment shows that while people often act pro-socially in classical economic games, things change when individuals are given the chance to earn large sums of money at the expense of harming many others. We also discuss how insights from psychology and neuroscience enrich economics by highlighting the importance of process data such as response times. Carlos Alós-Ferrer is Chair Professor of Economics at Lancaster University (UK). His research spans economics, psychology, and neuroscience, with a focus on decision-making processes and the interdisciplinary field of psycho-economics. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Economic Psychology and also writes the blog Decisions and the Brain on Psychology Today.

You can listen to Robbing the many to pay the one – game theory and temptation with Carlos Alós-Ferrer online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Robbing the many to pay the one – game theory and temptation with Carlos Alós-Ferrer is an episode from Game Changer - the game theory podcast by TWS Partners.

This episode is 30:53 long.

This episode was published on Oct 13, 2025.

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