Game Theory and Marriage
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/13/marriage-and-the-art-of-game-theory.html
There is an online article called “marriage and the art of game theory”, which I found to be very interesting and closely related to what we learned in game theory.
Marriage is very similar to game theory in many ways. They both requires two people playing the game, and each of them trying to seek the most benefit for them while considering the presence of the other person. People in marriage can face many daily problems like who should make dinner tonight. In order to make a happy life, they need to find the “best result possible”. The strategy we use to solve problems in marriage is similar to what we learned in class: think ahead, learn from the past and put yourself in other’s shoes.
In the article, an example of the dilemma of a couple, Joel and Lisa, is given to us:
Their refrigerator has been empty for five days but neither one backing down. Joel is waiting for Lisa because he thinks he has gone food shopping the last five Saturdays while Lisa played tennis. Lisa is waiting for Joel because she thinks she does everything in the house like folding Joel’s clothes. So they ended up with ordering pizza everyday.
Let’s draw a matrix for this case:
| Go shopping | Not go shopping | |
| Go shopping | 2,2
|
0,6
|
| Not go shopping | 6,0 | 3,3 |
Scoring: eat homemade dinner +3
Eat pizza +1
Go shopping -1
Feel unfair -1
Feel lucky +1
Do things you want +2
Columns are Lisa’s strategy and rows are Joel’s strategy
In this example, Lisa and Joel both didn’t put themselves in others shoes. Therefore, they both thought they used the strategy of (6,0) and (0,6) but they were actually using the strategy of (3,3) that neither of them going food shopping. In this dilemma, (3,3) is also the best response for them. However, in marriage, this is obviously not the “best result possible”, because they could have a better life if they have homemade dinner everyday.
In the article, a strategy is given, which is to “change the rules of the game by devising incentives so both Joel and Lisa are more motivated to cooperate than to have the last word”. An example would be to assign each of them specific shopping weeks and penalty for not going to shopping. In this way, the score of each strategy has changed due to the addition of penalty. Now, a new matrix looks like below:
| 3,3
|
0,2
|
| 2,0 | -1, -1 |
Scoring: add penalty for not going shopping -4
In this situation, the best response for them would be that both of them going shopping. Actually, the benefit they get from this strategy is even higher. This is because they take turns going food shopping, and both of them still get half of the Saturdays free to do something they want to do while always having ingredients in their fridge.
The idea of game theory can be applied to any relationship involving two or more people, not only for couple in marriage. The strategies mentioned above can help us successfully deal with problems in our daily life and let us keep a good and peaceful relationship with people around us. The example of Lisa and Joel also gave me some other insights about game theory. I think sometimes in real life problems such as marriage, even though we play game theory to solve them, the best response we get is not necessarily the “best result possible”. To achieve the “best result possible”, we can change the payoff of each strategy so that the best response becomes the best result possible. Just like the example of Lisa and Joel, the payoff of each strategy was changed my adding the penalty of not going shopping, which finally leads to the happy ending.