[Concept] The processes of blurring the boundaries of truth, modern identity challenges, including crises of attitudes and values, liquefying everyday social life can be perceived as sources of a number of negative consequences for the lives of individuals and societies (e.g. disinformation, risks, populisms, identity disorders) (Z. Bauman; U. Beck; A. Giddens ; and others). Clearly, in a consequence it also leads to blurring the meaning of failure and success. Even though, arguably failure is a universal experience, clearly its (re)definitions and perceptions are structurally embedded in the field of power. We identify the dynamics of this sphere. Our research distinguishes an array of social behaviors that contribute to destabilization of the rules of social games and, by abusing the existing norms, benefit from it. We describe these behaviors in terms of broadly understood „disguise” (regarding: facts, attitudes, values, actions, capitals). The contemporary shift towards cyber-environments and the digitization of interpersonal relations amplify these processes and attitudes even further, translating into a growing significance of „disguise” strategies.
[Approach] Classical game theories (E. Berne; P. Bourdieu; V. Turner) provide us with well-known tools and models, which allow us to describe the universe of strategies adopted by individuals within the social games they play. We also observe multiple contemporary applications of models arising from formal game theories (e. g. A. Gholamrez, ME Gordji & P. Choonkil). Unfortunately, to a large extent models applied in these various studies take the rationality of actors for granted. On the other hand, typically, deliberate application of disguise strategies is not taken into account. This topic is unpopular due to the difficulties arising from the necessity to include speculative factors related to the intentionality of actors. However, just because it is difficult does not mean that we should not try to explore the area. We argue that the process of social recognition is profoundly anchored in activities aimed at creating appearances and, on the other hand, correlated and interdependent with activities aimed at revealing such appearances. Presenting failures as successes and successes as failures being a critical part of this story. Furthermore, within a broader horizon, even more difficult questions emerge, in particular, who is empowered enough to judge what is true and what is fake in this picture.
[Modeling] We describe and examine a specific game, which we call „the green game”, where individuals gain social recognition for their attitude towards ecology, and, in particular, their successes and failures as well as the very perception of these successes and failures in this area. We use classic analytical categories (field, habitus, capitals) to create, describe and operationalize the model for the green game. The conditions of a success (or failure) in the game are identified in terms of social (dis)acceptance of the opinions, attitudes and actions manifested in the game. In particular we analyze: (a) awareness and motivation to disguise (parameters that characterize the individual); (b) circumstances encouraging the individual to adopt disguise strategies (parameters characterizing the context); (c) reaction patterns of other players, types and effectiveness of sanctions (parameters that characterize the reactions); (d) the effectiveness of disguise (parameters describing the cultural and social conditions).