Imagine you were to commit an armed robbery with Lembit Opik. (I know, you might think the contingency a remote one, but remember Mocan and Tekin’s famous paper). Imagine then that you were fingered by the Dibble, and held in separate cells. The Dibble then make you an offer: you can confess and shop Mr Opik, in which case you’ll be freed and he’ll face a long sentence unless he also confesses. Or you can keep quiet in which case you’ll be charged with the lesser offence of possessing weapons. You know the Dibble are putting the same offer to Mr Opik.
Do you grass him up?
According to this recent paper (pdf), you should. It shows that, in standard prisoners’ dilemma games such as I‘ve described, men with asymmetric faces are significantly more likely to co-operate than symmetric ones. With the lop-sided Mr Opik likely to keep quiet*, you can walk free by grassing him up.
Never let it be said this blog doesn’t offer practical advice.
What’s going on here? The thing is that facial symmetry is an indicator of genetic fitness. Men who have it are, therefore, more willing to compete against others and less willing to co-operate because they would usually win competitions.
There’s other evidence for this. This paper (pdf) finds that symmetrical men make lower offers in ultimatum games - they are more selfish.
The point here is a simple one, which some will find trivial but others not. Our behaviour responds not merely to incentives - the incentives are the same for everyone in the prisoners’ dilemma game - but to our genes. And, I suspect, the way they do so is sub-rational. Few symmetric men consciously think “I‘m genetically fit, so I‘ll defect in this game”. Instead, it‘s their selfish genes that do the work.
* My more literal-minded readers might object, with their tedious love of accuracy, that in fact we know other things about Mr Opik which might influence his and our decision to co-operate or not. But imagine that all we knew about him was his appearance.
Do you grass him up?
According to this recent paper (pdf), you should. It shows that, in standard prisoners’ dilemma games such as I‘ve described, men with asymmetric faces are significantly more likely to co-operate than symmetric ones. With the lop-sided Mr Opik likely to keep quiet*, you can walk free by grassing him up.
Never let it be said this blog doesn’t offer practical advice.
What’s going on here? The thing is that facial symmetry is an indicator of genetic fitness. Men who have it are, therefore, more willing to compete against others and less willing to co-operate because they would usually win competitions.
There’s other evidence for this. This paper (pdf) finds that symmetrical men make lower offers in ultimatum games - they are more selfish.
The point here is a simple one, which some will find trivial but others not. Our behaviour responds not merely to incentives - the incentives are the same for everyone in the prisoners’ dilemma game - but to our genes. And, I suspect, the way they do so is sub-rational. Few symmetric men consciously think “I‘m genetically fit, so I‘ll defect in this game”. Instead, it‘s their selfish genes that do the work.
* My more literal-minded readers might object, with their tedious love of accuracy, that in fact we know other things about Mr Opik which might influence his and our decision to co-operate or not. But imagine that all we knew about him was his appearance.
Phrenology the cutting edge of economics...
Posted by: BenP | June 07, 2010 at 08:08 PM
"The thing is that facial symmetry is an indicator of genetic fitness. Men who have it are, therefore, more willing to compete against others and less willing to co-operate because they would usually win competitions."
I think its an over-simplification to say "genetic fitness". Fitness isn't just based on competitive elements. There are altruistic parts too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness
Posted by: Alex | June 07, 2010 at 08:58 PM
I thought the point was that you should grass him up no matter what his facial symmetry? Especially if he's Lembit Opik...
Posted by: Nikhil Shah | June 07, 2010 at 09:24 PM
That's one explanation but it's not the only or most obvious one. Surely another is that people with asymmetric faces tend to be considered less attractive, and so across their lives people are less nice to them, leading them to be more unhappy, resentful, and hostile (or less happy, grateful, and friendly). Why resort to the genetic claim, which leaves the actual mechanism unspecified, when there's a perfectly direct explanation already available?
Posted by: Luke R | June 08, 2010 at 12:47 AM