The Red-Black Game, Pt.4: Security, Fear, and Predicting Human Behavior | Girls Chase

The Red-Black Game, Pt.4: Security, Fear, and Predicting Human Behavior

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Varoon Rajah's picture

red-black game predicting behavior
Feelings of security or fear largely influence how people play the game. Can these factors be used to predict whether someone will play red or black?

The red-black game is a simple reflection of how decision-making affects outcomes, like what’s called the “butterfly effect.” In Part 3, we started to see how trust, fear, and the outcomes of the red-black game are self-fulfilling prophecies.

Throughout my work story, the company CEO and my colleague Monica both played red at various points when I chose to play black. That created chaos for me because I was unprepared – and now, I was about to be defeated.

However, playing red all the time also invites total destruction. Now we’ll find out what led to Monica’s downfall.

To conclude the red-black game series, we’ll see that stability – or the appearance of stability – affects the perception and presence of trust and fear.

In the end, we’ll see that our own beliefs about the world create that reality, as well as the outcomes of the red-black game.

Comments

Zanardi's picture

Interesting world indeed.

 

Question: Is it ever a good strategy to switch from playing black to red without any reason at all? Just because you can?

 

Comment: two years ago, to prove a concept to a programming class, I made two female students to play red-black game one against each other. The stake was a big chocolate and the rules were these:

  1. If both play black, they split the chocolate;
  2. If one plays black and the other plays red, the one who plays red gets the chocolate, while the other gets nothing;
  3. If both play red, I get the chocolate and they look at me eating it (oh, the torture...);
  4. They have two minutes to openly negotiate what they'll do (Exactly like in split or steal TV show).

They both chose black and split the prize. I don't know if it's because the stakes were really low or because of the women's skittishness, but they got to the most profitable conclusion long-term.

BT Harrison's picture

In your version, it seems like there was a third player in the mix. The two players making the choice were provided with a shared opponent who is trying to take both their chocolate for himself.  Could this mean that in situations where two players share a threat, they're likely to team up and mutually acquire a win rather than give the source of the threat everything?  So, let's see... by playing black on each other, they mutually played red on you. After all, they both chose to leave you entirely chocolate-less.

That's brutal. ;)

But yeah, the stakes were pretty low. Then again, women do get crazy over chocolate.  Also, it was a big chocolate, so maybe they were both happy with half?  On a diet but didn't want to cheat "too" much?  Make you think they eat responsibly or are a "nice" person to impress you, because they like you?  I need to see more trials. :)

Dr. Klas's picture

Wow, that’s a good observation. This might explain why two sets women are the most difficult.

They would rather play black together and  play red on you. As one of them might see you as a threat(if she’s not the one chosen).

They play black because they get to keep their relationship and avoid one of them getting hurt. Then play red on you because you’re now seen as a threat.

I also notice this not only with two sets but also in groups of women with few guys.

What later happens is that the guy is tagged a “bad guy” by whatever reason which of course isn’t true.

If you’ve got good game, you might be able to prevent this but then it’s still very much possible.

What I’ve seen guys that succeed in this scenario do is they try as much as possible to befriend the friends of the girl they like, which is tiring, boring and stressful.

Still why I prefer cold approach a million times.

Author
Varoon Rajah's picture

You guys are all making a really good case for a Part 5 of this series - how to apply the Red/Black game to dating situations, and how girls will behave towards you with different things on the table.

Do you all want to see this? Let me know and I will write it.

To the points above - yes, what you are describing is cockblocking, which is two girls playing Black with each other and Red on a guy, in order to prevent one of them from going home with you (which to them is seen as their friend playing Red by choosing the guy, so the girl who will become the cockblocker would lose - and be alone - before she cockblocks). Once she cockblocks....no one of the three is getting laid, but at least the girls have their friendship intact. Remember that sex is short term (the guy could disappear forever the next day) but friendship/social ramifications can last a lifetime. So even the girl being cockblocked is (somewhat) actually okay with this, at least publicly (both girls are probably mad as hell inside, though).

How does one avoid this? You've gotta play Black with the cockblocker and "give her something" so that she doesn't feel shafted. Most often that takes the form of another guy, some kind of validation, or a threesome.

Dr. Klas's picture

Thanks for clarifying things better Varoon!

I’d love to see how it applies to dating situations — with your partner and also when trying to attract women, especially two sets and groups.

The red-black game opened my worldview on relationships in a way I haven’t seen it before. And I think its application to dating situations will help lots of guys out there understand more about the “whys” in dating. 

Kudos!

Zanardi's picture

Let part 5 come!

uForia's picture

I love how you brought up split and steal because it's just a classic prisoner's dilemma problem. However, a difference between the split and steal TV show and this scenario is that they're going to meet each other irl again and it's done in front of a class. A chocolate quite frankly isn't big prize money so each girl is trying to look innocent and trustworthy in front of the entire class since chances are high they're in their social circle and they have accumulated social capital within the school already. Thus the right move is to play black no matter the result due to the stakes outside the game.

If you're a guy though, then the stakes outside change. Guys are generally rewarded socially as Varoon mentioned for NYC for being ballzy and ruthless. They're more likely to play red.

Take a look at this split and steal though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8 It's very smart what that guy did. He psychologically forced the other player into a box by asserting that he'll play red, so that the other player will choose black since he's not gonna get a payoff either way.

As per your question, it's a basic game theory problem. If the conditions are set up in such a way that playing red is profitable even in the long term, then that's what you do. But that would involve a reason. As per playing red for no reason at all, it's a good strategy if you didn't know the risk of playing black was high and you just decided to yolo and screw someone over. But that's pretty much luck-based. Without any trigger to play red (such as an external job offer from a competitor paying 50% more or something like that, or new bad information about someone you're playing black with), that's the only way I see you can benefit from playing red, just dumb luck that maybe the person you're playing black with was planning to play red on you soon.

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