Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Watch people talk long enough and the conversation is rarely about what it seems. Someone lays out a problem at a party, turns down every suggestion, and looks quietly pleased when the room runs out of ideas. Eric Berne, a psychiatrist writing in the early 1960s, called these sequences games: an ongoing series of ulterior transactions running to a well-defined, predictable payoff. Superficially plausible, dishonest underneath, and — his real claim — most of serious social life.

Eric Berne on SummaryShelf

Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships