Marriage and Game Theory
Game theory is applicable to numerous situations. From the North Korea crisis to soccer penalty kicks to the ever so studied prisoner’s dilemma, game theoretic situations have been used to model decision making. It turns out game theory can be applied to marriages and relationships as well. One might question how, but once explained, in certain scenarios, game theoretic models can help relationships. Any person in a marriage, or one who has seen his or her parents, has witnessed husband and wife argue about chores. In the article, Paula Szuchman presents an idea to fix such arguments. Give incentives to perform chores, such as getting groceries, and model the choices as a game theoretic model. This way, both wife and husband, as long as they rationally think about the situation, are bound to go get groceries when they are supposed to. Otherwise, they have no choices or incentives, and thus both parties do not perform chores in an apathetic manner.
Such a situation can be modeled by a game theoretic model with relative simplicity. Assign a value of 5 to whoever gets the groceries when they are supposed to. If one goes and the other does not, the one that does not go incurs the penalty and has to clean the toilets, represented by a value of -10. If both do not care about getting the groceries, they both are given a value of 0. The pure strategy Nash equilibrium is if both husband and wife go to get groceries.
What is interesting about this article is not that the scenario presented can be modeled in such a way. It is that one can take a regular situation, introduce options, and make decisions in a more rational, logical manner. The implications of this idea are widespread. In any deadlock situations, or a situation in which both companies are indifferent or apathetic, attempting to model the situation through game theory can help solve problems. Of course, as always, there is the caveat that both parties involved do not think rationally, but the potential for innovative logical problem solving remains.
Link to article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/13/marriage-and-the-art-of-game-theory.html