Could this be just a case of apathy among all students other than the ASB guys? The teacher failed to make this an issue that the students cared about?
Also, since it was pre-determined which order the countries would be placed in, there was no shame in being the lowest ranked team. The team Russia can tell themselves they were just going along with the group decision, it’s not like they tried, yet failed.
To both your points: no, this is not just apathy. The bottom three teams did try to put up a fight in the first round.
To your first point, the second link gives examples of this in games people choose to play on their own.
To your second point, why did they give up in the second round, rather than form a block of losers? In particular, Austria supported Russia in the first round, so why didn’t Russia support Austria in the second?
Because once they saw that everyone else was following the lead of the ASB guys, they didn’t want to force the issue (social confrontation) because they didn’t care enough about the game?
Game theory is great if you know what game you’re playing.
The teacher set up some fun, interesting and rational game-theory world. The students played some insane social status game, with completely different rules and payoffs.
I would put it this way: The students were playing a social status game combined with an academic success game. The teacher started a sub game of both of these games but failed to provide academic incentives for it, resulting in incentive to win the social game, so that’s what they played and quite well I might add since it was zero sum and they resolved it quickly without any negative consequences from conflict. Would that all conflicts over fixed resources get resolved so cleanly!
Could this be just a case of apathy among all students other than the ASB guys? The teacher failed to make this an issue that the students cared about?
Also, since it was pre-determined which order the countries would be placed in, there was no shame in being the lowest ranked team. The team Russia can tell themselves they were just going along with the group decision, it’s not like they tried, yet failed.
To both your points: no, this is not just apathy. The bottom three teams did try to put up a fight in the first round.
To your first point, the second link gives examples of this in games people choose to play on their own.
To your second point, why did they give up in the second round, rather than form a block of losers? In particular, Austria supported Russia in the first round, so why didn’t Russia support Austria in the second?
Because once they saw that everyone else was following the lead of the ASB guys, they didn’t want to force the issue (social confrontation) because they didn’t care enough about the game?
I think this is exactly the point of the post.
The teacher set up some fun, interesting and rational game-theory world. The students played some insane social status game, with completely different rules and payoffs.
I would put it this way: The students were playing a social status game combined with an academic success game. The teacher started a sub game of both of these games but failed to provide academic incentives for it, resulting in incentive to win the social game, so that’s what they played and quite well I might add since it was zero sum and they resolved it quickly without any negative consequences from conflict. Would that all conflicts over fixed resources get resolved so cleanly!
Why “insane”?
Probably the wrong word. I don’t understand this kind of behavior and am often frustrated by it, but it probably makes sense in certain contexts.