Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, Pickup Lines, and Other Existential Puzzles
Page 7
—JOSH
The first thing to realize when picking a bottle from a wine list is that you are on a battlefield. And this is not a regular battle. It is a battle for your money. A battle between the restaurant (which wants as much of your money as possible) and your savings account. And what’s worse, the restaurant’s managers have much more data than you do about how people make their decisions (including decisions about wine), and they have the first-move advantage by setting up the menu in a way that gives them the upper hand.
In particular, restaurants know that people make relative decisions, which means that if the wine list includes some very expensive wines (say, bottles for $200 or more), customers are unlikely to order these very expensive bottles, but their mere presence on the list will make a $70 bottle seem much more reasonable.
Restaurants also know that many of us are cheap but we don’t want to seem cheap, which means that almost no one orders the cheapest wine on the menu. Instead, the wine of choice for cheapskates is the second-cheapest wine on the list. Knowing this, the restaurant places a wine with a relatively high margin in this attractive location on the wine list.
Finally, the restaurants have another weapon in their arsenal: waiters and sommeliers who add to our feelings of inadequacy and confusion and, in the haze of our decision making, can easily push us toward more expensive wines.
Now that you are getting the picture, and are thinking about the ordering of wine as a battle, you can think ahead. Perhaps you can decide in advance to spend up to a certain amount of money on wine. Or possibly tell the waiter that you have a religious rule against spending more than a set sum on wine and ask for a recommendation that would fit within your religious boundaries. If you really want to strike back, inform the waiter that you have allocated a total of fifty dollars for the tip and wine combined—so the more you spend on wine, the less you will leave as a tip. Now let’s see what they recommend.
Food and Drinks, Spending, Decisions, Value
ON TRAFFIC JAM ALTRUISM
“That other driver got the thank-you wave that I deserved.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
Often as I creep along in a traffic jam, someone inevitably tries to enter my lane from the side. Now here is the issue: If I let the car in, I feel good about it. But when I see others in front of me let someone in, I feel cheated, because I’ve been waiting longer than the car entering the lane, and I am upset with the driver who acted kindly at my expense. Any idea why I feel so different about these two situations?
—WALT
The issues here are control and credit. When you let someone into your lane, you’re the one making the decision and you’re the one getting the nod or the hand wave as an expression of gratitude. In contrast, when someone else is letting the needy car in, you have no control over the decision, and you’re not getting the credit. You only see the downside of this action in the form of an increased delay.
This analysis suggests that your emotional reaction is not just about the other driver. To illustrate this point consider a case where it is not another driver who is doing a favor to a car trying to join your lane. In this imaginary setup you simply keep a large distance between you and the car in front of you. By doing this, you’re allowing the cars from the merging lane to come into your lane at will, but it doesn’t require a separate act of generosity on your part. You don’t even need to slow down to let the car in. My guess is that this version of helping other drivers also wouldn’t feel very satisfying for you, not to mention that you’re not going to get any credit for your passive kindness.
What’s the conclusion? First, it is not about the other kind driver. It is about you! Second, to feel good about the good fortune of someone else, we need to feel that their positive outcome is a result of our own actions. Third, we want other people to recognize how wonderful and helpful we are.
Still, given how many other people are stuck in traffic ahead of you and the high likelihood that they’ll keep on letting cars merge into your lane, maybe you should start convincing yourself that real altruism consists of allowing good things to happen to strangers both directly and indirectly. And even when someone else gets the credit for it. Adapting this attitude won’t be easy, but if you manage it, good things will follow.
Cars, Helping, Appreciation
ON IDLE WAITING
“It’s O.K. I didn’t marry you for your parking karma.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
I noticed that when I drive around the block looking for parking I spend a lot of time very far away from my destination, which means that if I am lucky enough to find a parking space, I have to walk a long way in the cold (I live in Chicago). Because I hate the cold, I changed my strategy and now I just wait close to my destination until somebody leaves and I take their parking spot. It is hard for me to compare the two approaches directly, but waiting around seems to me to be as efficient if not better. The problem is that when I go places with some of my friends, they can’t stand this strategy and I succumb to their pressure and keep on driving around looking for a parking space. My question is why do my friends find it so intolerable to wait for someone to leave?
—DANNY
The phenomenon you’re encountering is aversion to idleness, and there’s an interesting story about efficiency and waiting that is related to your question: a while ago there was an optimization engineer working for an airline, and he realized that some carousels were close to some gates, and others were close to other gates. He decided to optimize which carousel the luggage arrived on, such that the luggage from each flight would be delivered on the carousel closest to where the plane landed. Before this algorithm was created, travelers would get off the plane and walk such a long way that sometimes their luggage would be waiting for them on the carousel. After the new system was implemented, the carousel was much closer and people would walk just a short distance, find the carousel, and wait a bit for their luggage. People hated this new system because they were spending some of their time standing in one place waiting for their luggage (and to make things worse, maybe also wondering if their luggage was lost or not). This idleness was so unpleasant that people complained and the airline discarded this efficient algorithm.
My understanding is that the airline did not take the complete opposite approach and start unloading luggage at the farthest possible carousel to solve this specific customer service issue—but given their overall attitude to customer service, I suspect that they are actively working on this approach.
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Dear Dan,
When I drive home at night, I have to look for a parking spot in my neighborhood. Should I stay in one place and wait for a parking spot to become available, or should I drive around in circles in search of a free space?
—IAN
I’m not sure there’s an objectively correct answer, but here are a few things to consider. On the one hand, you never know when and where a parking spot will free up, but you know for sure that driving around wastes more fuel than staying put. This suggests that waiting in one spot is the right approach. On the other, if you idle in place, you might be waiting at a location where everyone has already parked for the night, and if you drive around, at least you get to spread your risk and hedge your bets. And this suggests that driving around is the right approach.
But you should also consider the psychology of waiting: Staying put and doing nothing is much more annoying than being active. When we just wait, time passes more slowly, and patience wears thin. Regardless of how much fuel they might save, a lot of people would go crazy if they had to just sit in their cars and wait. So between fuel economy and mood maintenance, the best thing to do might be to buy a fuel-efficient car and keep moving.
Cars, Time, Waiting
ON FORCING DECISIONS WITH COINS
Dear Dan,
Do you have general advice for how to approa
ch difficult decisions? I’ve been thinking about which car to get for a very, very long time, and I just can’t decide.
—JOHN
Luckily the technology you need to solve this problem is already at your disposal. All you need is a coin. Assign each car to a side of the coin, and flip it high in the air. At this point, you can wait until the coin lands, and use this random device to make your choice—but my guess is that when the coin is in the air, you will realize which car is the one you really want.
The larger point is that once we have spent a substantial amount of time on a decision, and we still can’t figure out which option is the best, it must mean that the overall value of the competing options is more or less the same. It is not that the options are identical, but that the difference in their overall quality is hard to distinguish. After all, if it were easy to tell which one is the best, we would have made the decision already.
Once we recognize that the decision is between options with similar overall value, we need to start looking at the opportunity cost of time. In an effort not to waste much more time on the decision, we need to force ourselves to make a decision. And this is what the coin method is all about. The coin goes up in the air, and at that point we are forced to realize how we want the coin to fall, face our preferences, and make up our minds.
Decisions, Luck, Emotions
ON TRASHY NORMS
“His bag of poop speaks well of him.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
In the building where I live, we have a dedicated room for the large trash bins that serve the whole building. The problem is that some of the neighbors don’t want to touch the dirty trash bins with their hands (and I understand this feeling of disgust), so they end up leaving their trash bags on the floor of the room, and someone else has to pick it up at some point (this selfishness I don’t understand). Some of the neighbors in our building are politely asking the messy neighbors to put their garbage in the large trash bins, but to no avail. All kinds of threats have proven to be equally unsuccessful. What should we do?
—ARIEL
The problem in your building is not just about cleanliness. It is much more complex, and it has to do with the difficulty of changing social norms. What you have is a subculture in the building that does not consider leaving full trash bags on the floor to be embarrassing or shameful. And since this is the established norm for these individuals, it will take focused and deliberate effort to change this pattern of behavior.
In general, social norms are a powerful motivator and we are all susceptible to their influence in many areas of our lives. If you go to the trash room and see full trash bags lying around your judgment about right and wrong is affected, to some extent, by your own preexisting values and, to some extent, by the behavior of those around you. You say to yourself, “It seems that leaving the garbage bags on the floor is the standard practice in this particular place, which means that I can do the same and still feel good about myself.” But if there is no trash around, you might tell yourself, “Leaving trash here is inappropriate and I shouldn’t mess up this place.” The important thing to remember about social norms is that when it comes to minor violations we need to relentlessly criticize the violators, because when the violations are repeated, the norm itself changes and with it the danger that everyone will be swept up in it.
And how can we create better social norms? I would summon a tenants meeting to discuss plans for the building. In the meeting I would try to create a new social understanding for what is proper neighborly behavior (taking care of the building, placing garbage in the right place, etc.). With the desired behaviors clearly defined, I would take another step and have everyone sign a pledge to follow these new guidelines. Finally, if you address these problems at a time that is close to a break point in the year (maybe New Year), I would use this symbolic time as an opportunity for change, and link the tenants meeting and the pledge to this new beginning. As long as you create a new social norm, the garbage will seem to deal with itself and the benefits might even extend beyond the trash room.
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Dear Dan,
My partner and I live in a pretty 250-townhouse condo development and we have a problem with some people who don’t clean up after their dogs. There’s a fifty-dollar fine when an owner fails to clean up after their dog, but you have to know who the dog owner is, catch the person in the act, and report him to the condo corporation. This policy is not working. What can we do?
—RACHELLE
There are two approaches to consider in this situation: the positive approach of social norms and the negative approach of deterrence.
In terms of social norms, a great deal of research shows that what we do is less of a function of what’s legal and not, and more in line with what we find socially acceptable. This means that if dog owners observe a lot of droppings around the condo area, they will find it perfectly acceptable to further contribute to this behavior. On the other hand, if they find the grounds to be pristine and poop-free, they will feel guilty leaving some doggy souvenirs behind. With this in mind, the first lesson from social norms is that violators are not only leaving an unacceptable mess behind them, but that they are also strengthening an undesirable social norm (more evidence for the popularity of this behavior), and therefore making it more likely that others will follow. The social norm perspective also means that you should work extra hard to establish a better social norm because once a more desirable social norm is set, the behavior can maintain itself.
In terms of deterrence, I think you should try something more exotic than a fifty-dollar fine. I suspect that right now some dog owners see the setup as a “game” where they leave the droppings, while the other neighbors and managers try to catch them in the act and fine them. Assuming that this is the case, I would try to alter the nature of the game such that it unites the community of dog owners. For example, what if the condo management put a fixed amount of money in a community fund that was designed to pay for a droppings cleaner, as needed, and whatever money was left at the end of each month was used for a get-together for all the dog owners and their dogs? If a lot of money remained in the doggy-bank, the party would include food, drinks, and doggy treats; if no money was left, the party would serve water. This way, failing to clean up after their dogs would negatively impact the dog owners and their community. By increasing the personal and social costs of leaving dog poop behind, this kind of mechanism should get people to be more thoughtful, and make the grounds poop-free.
Social Norms, Other People, Coordination
ON MAKING SMOKING FEEL DANGEROUS
Dear Dan,
What’s the best way to get people to stop smoking?
—MYRON
The problem with smoking is that its effects are cumulative and delayed, so we don’t feel their danger. Imagine what would happen if we forced cigarette companies to install a small explosive device in one out of every million cigarettes—not big enough to kill anyone but powerful enough to create a bit of damage. My guess is that this type of immediate danger would make people stop smoking. And until we find a way to implement this approach, maybe we can get people to at least start thinking about smoking this way.
Health, Self-Control, Habits
ON ADVENTURES AS INVESTMENTS
Dear Dan,
I will graduate from college next year, and I really want to teach English in Spain afterward. There’s still a market for this, despite the Spanish economy, but I’m wondering if I should do it or not. It would give me an unforgettable experience—one I don’t think I’ll be able to have when I’m settled down with a job, a husband and kids. But, at the same time, it could delay the start of my career, which I want to have on track before I settle down. Is the experience worth delaying the start of my “real life”?
—GABRIELLA
The question is not about when to start your career. Your career has been on its way for a while now. What
you are really asking is what is the best next step on this path.
When I graduated, I asked Ziv Carmon—one of my academic advisors—which university I should aim for as my first academic job. His answer was that I should go to the place where, five years down the road, I would be most likely to emerge as a very different person. He then explained that life is about learning and improving, and that I should take advantage of my relative flexibility (no wife and kids at the time) and invest the next few years in my own development and growth. I took his advice seriously and accepted a position in a place that was not the best fit with my existing knowledge base. As a consequence, over the next few years I learned a lot of new things, changed my interests substantially, and became a much better researcher and teacher. I even think that I became a slightly better person (but maybe that part was just the aging process).
Since then, I have been a fan of thinking of the early years of life as an opportunity to collect lessons and experiences so that we are better equipped for the long and unpredictable road ahead. Of course, it is hard to predict what life lessons and experiences will be most useful for us in the future, but if you collect many experiences and skills, there is a good chance that some of them will become highly useful. Maybe you can think of this time in Spain as gambling with your time now for a future benefit. And since the seeds you sow now can yield fruit over many, many years, I would go for it.
Workplace, Education, Long-Term Thinking
ON THE QUALITY AND NOT THE QUANTITY OF IRRATIONALITY
Dear Dan,
I am convinced that some of our decisions are irrational, but what’s the proportion of irrational decisions?