Adventures in Game Theory, Part Two

In the previous installment of this adventure, I promised to reveal how the secrets to business effectiveness and social harmony could be achieved by playing games like Rock Paper Scissors. Will I be able to deliver on that outrageous promise? Only by reading on will you get to find out.

For the next part of our journey, let’s consider a new game which we’ll call Scissors Party. The rules are simple and very much like those of Rock Paper Scissors. Players bounce their fists as usual and then pick any one of the three gestures normally used in the game. However, the scoring system in this version is different. In Scissors Party, players get two points each if they successfully match their opponent’s choice and no points if they don’t match. So if two players both choose paper, they get two points each. If one player chooses scissors and the other chooses paper, nobody gets any points. As in Dilemma Party, players are free to stay with the same partner or mingle in the group as they like. Any guesses as to what happens?

You may have already guessed that players tend to form pairs and small clusters that make the same choice every time, eg: always rock or always paper. Even though lots of people will still mingle, they figure out fairly quickly that they’re not making as many points as the people who stay put. Just as in Dilemma Party, interpersonal dynamics add complexity to the game. Some people want to move around and take risks, while others just want to ace the game, so the results are never as perfectly consistent as we might imagine. However, the patterns are still pretty clear.

So far so good. But where it gets really interesting is when you put Dilemma Party and Scissors Party together. This gives you Scissors Dilemma Party: a game that gives players four options: rock, paper, scissors and nose-thumbing.  The scoring works as you’d expect:

• Thumbing gets you three points against rock, paper, or scissors but only one point against another thumb. 
• Successfully matching rock, paper, or scissors with your partner gets you two points.
• Failing to match with rock, paper or scissors, or coming up against a thumb, gets you zero points.

Everyone confused yet?

What’s bizarre is what happens when you play this game with a room full of people who have just played Scissors Party moments before. Even though they know full well that they can form cliques and collaborate to get two points each turn, people will form little clusters that repeatedly thumb noses instead, getting one point each instead. This means that they’re being half as effective at playing as they were thirty seconds ago, simply because they’ve been given the option to play it safe at the cost of other players. This, to me, is a fascinating example of how being given the option to tune out and avoid cooperation produces instant defensiveness and a change in social cohesion.

Perhaps some of you will by now have figured out where I’m going with these games by now. Choosing different gestures in the game is very much like choosing tokens to collect in life. Pairwise interactions are rather like small versions of the conversations we have every day. Rock, paper and scissors equate to different forms of social value, such as sexiness, intelligence, or likability. Nose thumbing equates to extracting involuntary tokens from others for personal validation gain. Whereas our choice of gestures in the game is conscious and our choice of tokens in life is non-conscious, the same patterns of defensive behavior can be seen. In fact, in non-conscious group behavior, we tend toward more predictable responses. Thus, playing Scissors Dilemma Party gives us an interesting, lightweight model for looking at how social groups form and interact.

Intriguing, I hear you say, but still not yet a conclusive solution to the world’s ills. True. To see the awesome social significance of Scissors Dilemma Party in all its glory, you’ll have to read Adventures in Game Theory Part Three.