Games People Play

participants may be in for a surprise. 
Transactions may be classified, then, as complementary or crossed, simple or ulterior, and ulterior 
transactions may be subdivided into angular and duplex types. 
Psychological 
level 
Psychological 
level 
Social level 
Buyer 
Salesman
Adult 
Child 
Adult 
Child 
Adult 
Adult 
(a) An Angular Transaction 
Girl
Child 
Child 
Social level 
Cowboy 
(b) A Duplex Transaction 
13

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CHAPTER THREE 
Procedures and Rituals 
TRANSACTIONS usually proceed in series. These series are not random, but are programmed. 
Programming may come from one of three sources: Parent, Adult or Child, or more generally, from 
society, material or idiosyncrasy- Since the needs of adaptation require that the Child may be 
shielded by the Parent or Adult until each social situation has been tested, Child programming is 
most apt to occur in situations of privacy and intimacy, where preliminary testing has already been 
done. 
The simplest forms of social activity are procedures and rituals. Some of these are universal and 
some local, but all of them have to be learned. A -procedure is a series of simple complementary 
Adult transactions directed toward the manipulation of reality. Reality is defined as having two 
aspects: static and dynamic. Static reality comprises all the possible arrangements of matter in the 
universe. Arithmetic, for example, consists of statements about static reality. Dynamic reality may 
be defined as the potentialities for interaction of all the energy systems in the universe. Chemistry, 
for example, consists of statements about dynamic reality. Procedures are based on data processing 
and probability estimates concerning the material of reality, and reach their highest development in 
professional techniques. Piloting an airplane and removing an appendix are procedures. 
Psychotherapy is a procedure insofar as it is under the control of the therapist's Adult, and it is not a 
procedure insofar as his Parent or Child takes over the executive. The programming of a procedure 
is determined by the material, on the basis of estimates made by the agent's Adult. 
Two variables are used in evaluating procedures. A procedure is said to be efficient when the agent 
makes the best possible use of the data and experience available to him, regardless of any 
deficiencies that may exist in his knowledge. If the Parent or the Child interferes with the Adult's 
data processing, the procedure becomes contaminated and will be less efficient. The effectiveness 
of a procedure is judged by the actual results. Thus efficiency is a psychological criterion and 
effectiveness is a material one. A native assistant medical officer on a tropical island became very 
adept at removing cataracts. He used what knowledge he had with a very high degree of efficiency, 
but since he knew less than the European medical officer, he was not quite as effective. The 
European began to drink heavily so that his efficiency dropped, but at first his effectiveness was not 
diminished. But when his hands became tremulous as the years went by, his assistant began to 
surpass him not only in efficiency, but also in effectiveness. It can be seen from this example that 
both of these variables are best evaluated by an expert in the procedures involved—efficiency by 
personal acquaintance with the agent, and effectiveness by surveying the actual results. 
From the present viewpoint, a ritual is a stereotyped series of simple complementary transactions 
programmed by external social forces. An informal ritual, such as social leave-taking, may be 
subject to considerable local variations in details, although the basic form remains the same. A 
formal ritual, such as a Roman Catholic Mass, offers much less option. The form of a ritual is 
Parentally determined by tradition, but more recent "parental" influences may have similar but less 
stable effects in trivial instances. Some formal rituals of special historical or anthropological 
interest have two phases: (1) a phase in which transactions are carried on under rigid Parental 
strictures (2) a phase of Parental license, in which the Child is allowed more or less complete 
transactional freedom, resulting in an orgy. 
Many formal rituals started off as heavily contaminated though fairly efficient procedures, but as 
time passed and circumstances changed, they lost all procedural validity while still retaining their 
usefulness as acts of faith. Trans-actionally they represent guilt-relieving or reward-seeking 
compliances with traditional Parental demands. They offer a safe, reassuring (apotropaic), and 
often enjoyable method of structuring time. 
Of more significance as an introduction to game analysis are informal rituals, and among the most 
instructive are the American greeting rituals.