Interesting comment Lurker. I suspect that any focus solely on game would be detrimental to other factors we care about in life – so I’m not sure if a player and homo economicus are quite the same thing. Mr economicus is a general social animal, and he can be abstracted to the point of complete empirical worthlessness.

Ultimately there is a trade-off, and given that some people make the decision to neg and given that it is solely outcome related (there is not “pleasure” from negging the girl per see) I find it difficult when economists say it must be suboptimal just because they don’t like it …

1. The neg is a bit of a reductio ad absurdum. The idea is to prove you’re not desperate, so what proves this more than insulting the woman? So it’s really a bit of a logical fallacy.

2. ‘The Game’ is in some ways an economists dream for rationality. For instance, there is the idea of one-i-tis, in which you don’t get obsessed with one particular woman because you rationally tell yourself that ‘there are many more fish in the sea’. This is actually very true, and this irrational behaviour can be controlled if one is self-aware, and thus reach the state of Pickup Artist (oops I meant homo economicus).

I imagine this would be an entertaining survey to watch though 🙂

Perhaps you’re right that this is the core of our disagreement: a value judgment about how costly the strategy is.

“I was just suggesting that it would be a fun study to work on”

I dunno… I’m all about enlisting others to do the survey work and sitting in a backroom in front of my computer 😉

Yes you are right with this.

However, in this case I would simply say that we must have a case where it is inherently costly for some people to show this strategy – as given actions this does seem to be a dominant strategy for those who “game”.

I can see where you got me here, you said:

“Secondly, I don’t see how it is a credible signal of high value if it’s a dominant strategy for all men.”

When I never, ever, ever, made the claim that it was a dominant strategy for all men – I only said it was obviously a dominant strategy for those that used it. As a result, I got confused. 🙂

So, we can agree that this could easily be a dominant strategy and a signaling eqm, even though we current can’t observe the makeup, only the actions.

“I just can’t see signaling being a good explanation for why it’s dominant”

This is based on your belief that it is low cost to neg. I am not so sure, I think for some guys this could be a high cost strategy.

“You’re not happy with my suggestion that we enlist a psychologist to explain it for us?!”

Of course I am, I was just suggesting that it would be a fun study to work on – I am all about studies after all.

I think the key is that the negging has to convey some information to be worthwhile as a signal. If it’s not costly to fake then it conveys no information. Hence it can’t be a signalling issue.

Empirically, those guys may well be right that it’s a dominant strategy. I just can’t see signalling being a good explanation for why it’s dominant. You’re not happy with my suggestion that we enlist a psychologist to explain it for us?!

“even if you want to call it an indirect externality”

I want to call it an issue of institutional design – not an externality 🙂

“On the second issue, I’m still unconvinced. A signal has to be costly to fake in order to have any credibility. I don’t see how that condition is satisfied here”

I agree that in a situation where everyone is using the device it isn’t providing any benefit – in relative terms you are the same negging chump as everyone else. But that doesn’t stop it being a dominant strategy does it?

Think of it this way, if by not negging you signal that you are not “good enough” then it is in your interest to neg whether other people are or not – this seems like a dominant strategy to me. It might only be weakly dominant, but I still believe it is dominant.

“Even if you abandon the latter two signalling arguments in favour of your first two justifications for negging I think you’re on shaky ground. For the first, I think the argument against signalling holds. Just because a guy claims to be picky doesn’t mean you’d believe him without a credible signal. Which cheap talk isn’t!

The second seems more economically plausible. If the girl updates her beliefs about her own value by taking into account the negging then it may lower her perception of her value. However, over a large number of human interactions, I doubt this single interaction is sufficient to significantly affect her perception of herself.”

Potentially, but potentially not. These are variables that we really need to estimate through field work methinks. Maybe we can find people who are keen to go and attempt dating strategies, collect results, and then do some analysis.

Matt Nolan :

OK, so we agree that the first is a problem, even if you want to call it an indirect externality.

On the second issue, I’m still unconvinced. A signal has to be costly to fake in order to have any credibility. I don’t see how that condition is satisfied here.

Even if you abandon the latter two signalling arguments in favour of your first two justifications for negging I think you’re on shaky ground. For the first, I think the argument against signalling holds. Just because a guy claims to be picky doesn’t mean you’d believe him without a credible signal. Which cheap talk isn’t!

The second seems more economically plausible. If the girl updates her beliefs about her own value by taking into account the negging then it may lower her perception of her value. However, over a large number of human interactions, I doubt this single interaction is sufficient to significantly affect her perception of herself.

I reckon we need a psychologist here to explain this!

“Hmmm, I think there are three issues: First, there are externalities. If negging is viewed as acceptable then it cements attitudes of male dominance that people have worked so hard to break down.”

There is a difference between a direct externality and the impact of changing norms on institutional structure. I have conceded that this may be a concern – but given economists are unwilling to take this issue seriously in other fields I don’t know why we would suddenly pop it out as a reasonable excuse in the field of neg 😉

“Secondly, I don’t see how it is a credible signal of high value if it’s a dominant strategy for all men”

Indeed. However, we know that heterogeneity implies that it isn’t a dominant strategy for “all men”. And even if it was – signaling high value was only one way the strategy worked. Also, it is a dominant strategy because it signals higher value than someone that doesn’t use it – even if it is dominant for all men it doesn’t invalidate that point!