I opened Monday’s class by splitting my 150+ students into pairs for a few Schelling games. (Seventy-five pairs can be noisy.) To win at a Schelling game, all you have to do is guess the same thing that your partner guesses. And of course, they’re trying to guess the same thing you are. For example, if you can choose between heads or tails, which should you choose? You guessed it — almost everyone chose heads.
Schelling games are relevant to linguistics. Herbert Clark points out that dialogue works because there’s a tendency for people to try and coordinate their activities together using talk. This is true even when you’re working with someone you may not know well. You may not share much common ground with them, but you can still rely on a kind of garden-variety context.
The second round was ‘pick a number’. Here are the choices: 7, 13, 99, 261, 555. Which would you pick if you were trying to match someone who was trying to match you?
People who won tended to pick 13, although there were some interesting other answers. One pair won with 261.
“You both picked 261?” I asked. “That’s rather surprising.”
“We’re brother and sister!” they said.
Which made Clark’s point rather nicely. People who have no common ground will fall back on normal-seeming answers if they want to agree, but when two people have a lot of shared knowledge, unexpected things can take on a salience of their own.
Let’s try a Schelling game now. You win a free trip to any city in the world, but only if you choose the same city that your partner does. And your partner is me, and I’m trying to guess what you’ll guess. My answer is in comments.
1 April 2007 at 12:45 pm
Glad you decided to play. Here’s my answer:
New York City.
Did we win?
1 April 2007 at 3:04 pm
Damn! Nope. Too bad, I could use a holiday.
1 April 2007 at 6:43 pm
We won!
1 April 2007 at 10:16 pm
New York City? Well I guess if you are in Australia it makes a good choice for the game. I went with Paris as a matching choice but if it was just me choosing I’d go with Baghdad right now. (I know, strange choice but I have my reasons)
1 April 2007 at 11:36 pm
Honestly that was the first city that popped into my head! I can’t think of a city I would jump at the chance of visiting more. I was there for a summer when I was 17 and my father was teaching a summer school at Columbia. But that was 33 years ago …
Oddly enough, the second city that came into my head was Paris but I discarded that as a choice for Daniel.
I find web affinities quite intriguing.
2 April 2007 at 8:53 am
Actually that was my second choice.
Well, first choice to visit, but second choice of what I thought people would pick.
2 April 2007 at 2:20 pm
That’s kind of an ironic one to pick, especially considering current travel plans. But I guess this is a game, huh?
For you, I would have guessed Mexico.
2 April 2007 at 2:31 pm
oops. add “city” to that.
2 April 2007 at 10:11 pm
My second choice was London. I didn’t even consider Paris. But then maybe I’m biased due to my current location.
23 April 2007 at 8:07 am
I originally chose Perth because I am an unbiased West Aussie who loves the place and doesn’t want to go anywhere else. Then I remembered the whole point was to choose something everyone else would pick. Since I assume that a lot of people on here are American, I chose New York. Does the second choice count, since I thought it before looking in comments?
I never was any good at schelling games. My pair didn’t even get one match!
By the way, what was you’re first choice?
Kylie
23 April 2007 at 4:12 pm
Just to clarify. If you still exist T.D.M. or D.T.M. ???
You picked Paris as your first choice to visit but New York as your first choice for the game…Yes?
Jeff
24 April 2007 at 2:28 am
Call him T. Dog.
He likes it.
😉
24 April 2007 at 6:19 am
Eyeroll.
Yeah, I just said New York because that’s what I thought everyone else would pick.
Peer pressure.
24 April 2007 at 9:49 pm
Well since most of the people on your blog are actually Aussies I’d say New York was the best guess. (although I thought I heard once that australians mostly vacationed in the south pacific and malaysia) Guess thats what I get for listening to things I hear once.
Congrats to bev and your family by the way!!!