The Traveler's Dilemma


	The Traveler's Dilemma

wildcat

5-23-2007 7:17 AM

716 views

tags:

science, research, economics, psychology, rationality, game theory

wildcat says:

fascinating, needs reading

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/1d194dd0-f432-4e95-bba2-e1ac8f60a0be/71DA1D9F-DEFD-43CD-833F-0FF8C2635BC1/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=7750A576-E7F2-99DF-3824E0B1C2540D47" href="http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=7750A576-E7F2-99DF-3824E0B1C2540D47" style="font-size: 11px;">sciam.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=7750A576-E7F2-99DF-3824E0B1C2540D47">When playing this simple game, people consistently reject the rational choice. 
In fact, by acting illogically, they end up reaping  a larger reward--an outcome that demands a new kind of  formal reasoning</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=7750A576-E7F2-99DF-3824E0B1C2540D47">Lucy and Pete, returning from a remote Pacific island, find that the airline has damaged the identical antiques that each had purchased. An airline manager says that he is happy to compensate them but is handicapped by being clueless about the value of these strange objects. Simply asking the travelers for the price is hopeless, he figures, for they will inflate it.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=7750A576-E7F2-99DF-3824E0B1C2540D47">He asks each of them to write down the price of the antique as any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number, he will take that to be the true price, and he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will assume that the lower one is the actual price and that the person writing the higher number is cheating</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/71DA1D9F-DEFD-43CD-833F-0FF8C2635BC1/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>