It would be great if there was a local restaurant named "I Don't Care" or "What Do You Want?" because these phrases are the most popular answer when it comes to asking my family what we should do for dinner. There is no dictatorial vote among my parents, my brothers, and myself, so we use a pure democracy to choose where to eat. Yet, when it comes time to deliberate and vote, many of my family members seem disinterested in participating. Only when the decision has been made do they speak up–by complaining. "We had that last week!" "But I don't like Italian!" Clearly, my family has differing utilities according to restaurant based on their preferences, otherwise they would not complain and we could pick randomly. Considering this, are they rational to not vote?
If the expected marginal benefit of casting their vote on dinner exceeds the marginal cost of doing so, it seems they would vote every time. With only six voters, the expected marginal benefit is likely sizable, since the probability that one vote matters is not negligible like it would be in a political race. Thus, the problem must be that there is a significant cost to voting for them to be rationally abstaining. I believe the cost they face comes from the fact that we vote vocally, so each person has to suffer the chore of defending their preference, entertaining complaints, and being "responsible" if the food or service is subpar. Each abstaining voter would rather let the vote play among those who choose to participate, then attempt to sway the decision in a non-democratic manner, either by persuasion or complaining.
I would prefer if every single family member voted, so everyone's preferences would be expressed and the non-democratic cycle of whining would end. To solve this dilemma, I can propose two solutions. First, we can add a non-probabilistic benefit to voting. I suggest that each person who votes can have dessert at the restaurant. Second, we can minimize the cost to voting by formalizing the vote with a secret ballot. Personally, I think there is some value to the vocal vote, because it gets my family to discuss the options. Therefore, the first solution takes the cake.
2 comments:
As someone also from a family of six I understand the dilemma of finding a place to eat. You raise an interesting question of the rationality of whether to vote. The equation for the benefits of voting is (P x MB): P is the probability that your vote is decisive and MB is the marginal benefit of one restaurant over another. In an election the P is very small, as there is a very small probability of your vote being decisive. However, in a family of 6, the probability of the vote being 2-3 or 2-2 with an abstention before your vote is much higher. Thus, while in an election the tiny P makes it less rational to vote, in voting for dinner the P is much higher. Then, the rationality of voting for dinner is influenced heavily by the MB part of the equation. This evidently large, as evidenced by the amount of criticism your family can place on the decision makers. Clearly it is an important decision. Thus, with relatively large P and MB, the benefits of voting for dinner are high.
It may be that the costs of voting are also high in terms of blow-back from family members. You advocate for desert for those who vote. However, this itself imposes a cost on the person paying for the meal, incentivizing less eating out, which then leads to the votes on where to eat on the now scarce meals out being even more important. The cost of getting votes is just shifted to one person, and could lead to more contentious votes in the future. The negative externalities lead to higher costs with free desert. If the vote is blind, the dissatisfaction with the choice isn't leveled at individuals, so the personal costs are lower with that.
Thanks your for comment, Connor. I suppose I was not considering the cost imposed by desserts on the person who pays. I am concerned that you would be right about that leading to less restaurant meals. I suppose it depends on how the payer would respond to that imposed cost. For my family, as an example, we tend to eat out once a week and on special occasions. Perhaps the additional cost would have no effect because eating out weekly is set as a sort of family norm. However, should that cost impact the relative frequency of eating out, I think you are right to suggest that a blind vote would be most suited for reducing the personal cost of voting.
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