Game Theory in Season 3 of Bachelor Pad
I am a very big fan of the Bachelor franchise. One could say that it is my guilty pleasure. So, when I took economics in high school, I was very excited when my teacher said that he would be using a clip from Bachelor Pad to show our class a real-life example of game theory. On the third season of the show, the final two contestants, Nick and Rachel, were thrust into a modified version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: they were told that they each had to choose whether to “keep” or “share” the $250,000 prize. If they both picked “share,” they’d each get half of the money. If one picked “share” and the other picked “keep,” the one who chose to keep would get the full $250,000, while the other would be left with nothing. If they both picked “keep,” they would both be denied the money, which would then be distributed amongst the previously eliminated contestants. Here’s a matrix to represent the situation, like the ones we’ve seen in class:
As we learned in class, a player’s strategy is a dominant strategy if it is a best response to every possible strategy that the other player can choose to use. Looking at the matrix, we can see that if Rachel chooses to “share” the money, Nick’s best response would be to “keep” the money, because that way he’d get all of it. However, if Rachel chooses to “keep” the money, regardless of what Nick chooses, he’ll get no money. As my teacher at the time mentioned, though, if Nick’s goal isn’t just to win the money, but also to keep Rachel from winning more money than him, his best response would be to “keep” the money, because that way neither of them would get anything. Since Nick’s best response is to “keep” the money regardless of what Rachel does, “keep” is his dominant strategy (the same logic would work for Rachel – “keep” would be her dominant strategy as well).
During the previous two seasons of the show, both finalists chose to “share” the money. However, on Nick and Rachel’s season, Rachel made the decision to “share,” while Nick chose to “keep,” earning himself the entire cash prize. This led to a lot of drama, but as my economics teacher pointed out, he had just chosen to follow his dominant strategy! I’m sure Rachel wouldn’t be happy to hear that logic, though.
I sourced this article from the official Bachelor Nation website – it describes the finale of Bachelor Pad season 3 and Nick’s decision:
Other Networks blog posts that discuss Bachelor Pad:
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2011/09/21/game-theory-on-reality-television/
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2015/09/11/game-theory-in-reality-competition-shows/