I was recently watching a TV show called How I Met Your Mother. In the show, there are two characters named Kevin and Robin who just recently started dating. In one episode, they are hanging out with their friends who decide to have a pretty wild night. When the friends suggest that they all go to a crazy party that night, neither Kevin nor Robin want to go (as indicated by their respective internal monologues) because they are tired. However, they both lie and say that they do want to go. I wondered why they both did this until I realized that it was a case of a Prisoner's Dilemma.
During their respective internal monologues, both of them said that they felt the need to lie and say yes to going to the party because when someone is in the early stages of a romantic relationship, he or she wants their partner to think that they are exciting and always down to have fun so the relationship doesn't become boring. While this is just a TV show, this reasoning seemed pretty realistic since boredom is one of the worst things for a relationship. Both Robin and Kevin recognize that if they lie and say they want to go to the crazy party, they will come off as adventurous and fun to the other – regardless of whether the other is honest or lies. Even though they both are worse off if they both lie, the utility each of them gets from their partner thinking they are exciting incentivizes them to lie. Therefore, lying is the dominant strategy for both of them. However, both of them engaging in their dominant strategies of lying results in a Pareto inefficient allocation of resources (i.e. their time, energy, etc.) since they both would be better off if each of them were honest since both truly just want to stay home and conserve their energy.
Since Kevin and Robin are the only ones aware of the situation, it may be difficult to find a solution. However, if both of them separately told their friend Lily, for example, about how they feel the need to lie instead of being honest, Lily – a third party – could enact some sort of "contract" in which both of them must tell each other the truth about how they don't want to go to the crazy party or else she will reveal an embarrassing secret about each of them to the other. While some may call this "blackmailing", I think of it more as "incentivizing two parties to avoid their dominant strategies in order to arrive at a Pareto optimal outcome". This may sound immoral and unhealthy, but hey – I'm not thinking like a relationship counselor; I'm thinking like an economist!
During their respective internal monologues, both of them said that they felt the need to lie and say yes to going to the party because when someone is in the early stages of a romantic relationship, he or she wants their partner to think that they are exciting and always down to have fun so the relationship doesn't become boring. While this is just a TV show, this reasoning seemed pretty realistic since boredom is one of the worst things for a relationship. Both Robin and Kevin recognize that if they lie and say they want to go to the crazy party, they will come off as adventurous and fun to the other – regardless of whether the other is honest or lies. Even though they both are worse off if they both lie, the utility each of them gets from their partner thinking they are exciting incentivizes them to lie. Therefore, lying is the dominant strategy for both of them. However, both of them engaging in their dominant strategies of lying results in a Pareto inefficient allocation of resources (i.e. their time, energy, etc.) since they both would be better off if each of them were honest since both truly just want to stay home and conserve their energy.
Since Kevin and Robin are the only ones aware of the situation, it may be difficult to find a solution. However, if both of them separately told their friend Lily, for example, about how they feel the need to lie instead of being honest, Lily – a third party – could enact some sort of "contract" in which both of them must tell each other the truth about how they don't want to go to the crazy party or else she will reveal an embarrassing secret about each of them to the other. While some may call this "blackmailing", I think of it more as "incentivizing two parties to avoid their dominant strategies in order to arrive at a Pareto optimal outcome". This may sound immoral and unhealthy, but hey – I'm not thinking like a relationship counselor; I'm thinking like an economist!
No comments:
Post a Comment