Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Worst Than Reality

Last night was the finale of the 13th season of ABC's The Bachelor. With no surprise to probability, the relationship for the "winners" has not worked out. In fact, the bachelor has now decided to try a relationship with the second place finisher. As my wife watched the season (and yes, I was there for a lot of it), I couldn't help but wonder what was going through the minds of the women. Out of 13 Bachelor and 4 Bachelorette seasons, there have only been 1 lasting marriage (though two are currently engaged). That's 1/17 (.05%) chance. More than 10 times the normal divorce rate! But to be fair, you have to beat out 25 other women competing to even get that far. That bumps your chance at a lasting marriage to 1/425 (.002%) chance. You're more likely to roll 70 dice and guess the number rolled. So my question is, who would put themselves through such heart break for such a small chance at a real relationship? 1) people who want to be on TV or 2) those who believe this is their best chance at "love". This selection effect (and the insane polygamist structure of the show) probably explains why the failure rate is so high.

5 comments:

  1. Alex, I will take 1) People who want to be on TV for $400. Notice that you are looking at the chance of people going from 1) People who want to be on TV to A) people who are in a committed relationship for life. It would explain your probabilities.
    Excellent table analysis.

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  2. So are you a fan of reality TV? I know it's not "real" or "sensible" but I suspend disbelief because it's completely stupid and rad.

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  3. Funny, Erin and I were just talking about this show the other night - how sexist it is and why this doesn't seem to affect its popularity with women.

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  4. Don't get me wrong Joe, I'm not against all reality TV? Maybe you've heard of a little show called Survivor!?! It's reality, its like Lost + Biggest Loser.

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  5. Thanks to a pointer from a reader, the my calculations should be a 5% chance, not a 0.05% chance. 1 divided by 17 is 0.058, which equals 5.8%. I made a B- in Econometrics.

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You are the reason why I do not write privately. I would love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or not.