WIRED.CO.UK - Nov 29 - When on a first date, we try to express ourselves and learn about the other person, but we're also being careful not to offend them either. This is called a bad equilibrium, a strategy that all the players can easily adopt and converge on, but it does not produce a desirable outcome for anyone. Dan Ariely and Jeana Frost decided to look at this problem in the context of online dating. They limited the type of discussions that online daters could engage in by giving them a preset list of questions. For example: "How many romantic partners have you had?"; "Do you have any STDs?"; "What is your sexual fantasy?" This forced them to risk rejection by posing questions that are outside of generally accepted bounds. What they learned is that when people are free to choose what type of discussions they want to have, they gravitate toward an equilibrium that is easy to maintain, but that no one really enjoys or benefits from. If we restrict the equilibria, we can get people to gravitate toward behaviours that are beneficial for everyone. FULL ARTICLE @ WIRED.CO.UK
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