You and your partner/rival are independently given the choice of “Heads” or “Tails”. Neither knows the choice of the other. If both of you choose “Heads” you’ll get $1 and your opponent $3. If both of you choose “Tails”, you’ll get $3 and your opponent $1. Otherwise neither of you gets anything. Most pairs would coordinate on “Heads” (again because of convention/salience), with the Tails player not insisting on Tails because she has no way to coordinate (arrange for compensation, say) with the Heads player on this. This is coordination without communication and with some conflict of interest. But not total conflict, as they would rather coordinate than get no payment at all.
I don’t understand. Is the situation:
A and B are playing. If both pick “heads”, A gets $1 and B gets $3. If both pick “tails”, A gets $3 and B gets $1.
?
If so, they seem to be in symmetrical positions, so why would they both gravitate to “heads”?
Edit: Is it just that “heads” is a more obvious default answer than “tails”?
This is perhaps not the best example to illustrate the phenomenon. Consider, instead, the following game, also taken from Schelling:
A, B and C are given the labels A, B and C, and told to pick an ordering of the letters A, B and C. If they agree on the ordering, then the person whose letter is ranked first wins $4, the person whose letter is ranked second wins $2 and the person whose letter is third wins $1. Otherwise, no-one wins anything. The players are not allowed to communicate amongst themselves—what ordering should they pick?
Here, I think it is obvious that ABC is massively more salient than any other ordering. It is not completely obvious to me that “heads” is more obvious than “tails” in the OP.
Yes, heads is supposed to be obvious/prominent/conventional/canonical.
Schelling actually did a small scale experiment (though with $2 instead of $1). His results: 16 out of 22 A’s and 15 out of 22 B’s chose heads.
If heads vs. tails seems too balanced to you, try this (from the book verbatim):
You and your two partners or rivals each have one of the letters A, B, and C. Each of you is to write these three letters. A, B, and C, in any order. If the order is the same on all three of your lists, you get prizes totaling $6, of which $3 goes to the one whose letter is first on all three lists, $2 to the one whose letter is second, and $1 to the person whose letter is third. If the letters are not in identical order on all three lists, none of you gets anything. Your letter is A/B/C.
Results:
9 out of 12 A’s, 10 out of 12 B’s, and 14 out of 16 C’s, successfully co-ordinating on ABC.
9 out of 12 A’s, 10 out of 12 B’s, and 14 out of 16 C’s, successfully co-ordinating on ABC.
That’s 3/4ths of As, 5/6ths of Bs, and 7/8ths of C’s. I’m mildly (pleasantly) surprised that more people coordinated into giving themselves small prizes than coordinated into giving themselves larger prizes.
Yeah, I think that example is more clear—but it’s nice to see that the prediction worked in the heads/tails case!
I guess I didn’t hit on the “point” immediately, though I got it after rereading due to confusion. If I’m not an outlier it might help to hammer on it a little more—some choices are more ‘obvious’ ‘landmarks’ and for no other reason are attractors.
I think the idea is: they both pick “heads” because it’s more obvious than “tails”, it’s the most salient “landmark” in the territory (like the information desk).
I’d expect this to be a weak effect if the study were actually done between strangers, and I’d expect most people to spend most of their effort trying to simulate the other player rather than looking for landmarks, but that’s the logic as I understand it.
I think the idea is: they both pick “heads” because it’s more obvious than “tails”, it’s the most salient “landmark” in the territory (like the information desk).
I wonder: is heads a “landmark” all around the world, or is tails an equally obvious choice in some cultures? (It seems like the kind of thing that could be arbitrary.)
I don’t understand. Is the situation:
A and B are playing. If both pick “heads”, A gets $1 and B gets $3. If both pick “tails”, A gets $3 and B gets $1.
?
If so, they seem to be in symmetrical positions, so why would they both gravitate to “heads”?
Edit: Is it just that “heads” is a more obvious default answer than “tails”?
Edit: Okay, I understand now :)
This is perhaps not the best example to illustrate the phenomenon. Consider, instead, the following game, also taken from Schelling:
A, B and C are given the labels A, B and C, and told to pick an ordering of the letters A, B and C. If they agree on the ordering, then the person whose letter is ranked first wins $4, the person whose letter is ranked second wins $2 and the person whose letter is third wins $1. Otherwise, no-one wins anything. The players are not allowed to communicate amongst themselves—what ordering should they pick?
Here, I think it is obvious that ABC is massively more salient than any other ordering. It is not completely obvious to me that “heads” is more obvious than “tails” in the OP.
That’s a very good example.
Apologies for not being clear.
Yes, heads is supposed to be obvious/prominent/conventional/canonical.
Schelling actually did a small scale experiment (though with $2 instead of $1). His results: 16 out of 22 A’s and 15 out of 22 B’s chose heads.
If heads vs. tails seems too balanced to you, try this (from the book verbatim):
Results:
That’s 3/4ths of As, 5/6ths of Bs, and 7/8ths of C’s. I’m mildly (pleasantly) surprised that more people coordinated into giving themselves small prizes than coordinated into giving themselves larger prizes.
Yeah, I think that example is more clear—but it’s nice to see that the prediction worked in the heads/tails case!
I guess I didn’t hit on the “point” immediately, though I got it after rereading due to confusion. If I’m not an outlier it might help to hammer on it a little more—some choices are more ‘obvious’ ‘landmarks’ and for no other reason are attractors.
But I still don’t understand, so please explain your understanding.
I think the idea is: they both pick “heads” because it’s more obvious than “tails”, it’s the most salient “landmark” in the territory (like the information desk).
I’d expect this to be a weak effect if the study were actually done between strangers, and I’d expect most people to spend most of their effort trying to simulate the other player rather than looking for landmarks, but that’s the logic as I understand it.
I wonder: is heads a “landmark” all around the world, or is tails an equally obvious choice in some cultures? (It seems like the kind of thing that could be arbitrary.)
Hmmm… I’d guess whatever they call the “main” side is what we’d translate as “heads” (or “obverse”)
; )