We've all seen children playing in a room with dozens of toys only to end up fighting over one. Most would explain this away with irrationality or jealously, but those reasons rarely satisfy me. A better explanation is that playing with a toy signals that it is valuable. When a child sees another child playing with a toy, it is evidence that the other toy is fun. When they try and take it and their friend resists, this only confirms what they suspected. This also helps explain the strategy used by parents to distract fighting children by showing them how fun other toys are. They are trying to signal that other toys are just as fun and aren't already being used. Speaking of adults, how are we like this too?
Friday, November 20, 2009
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ReplyDeleteI think that's a long definition for jealousy.
ReplyDeleteWell it's an explanation for why kids drop the choice they made and try take what others have. Jealously is part of it, but I think they have different information and so make different choices. Maybe this should have been called the Economics of Jealousy.
ReplyDeleteI agree on the signaling thing, but I think it is still an example of irrationality because people are relying on imperfect skewed signals to determine what is valuable instead of taking it all as given, as Homo Economicus would.
ReplyDeleteBut isn't all information skewed to a certain extent. It seems to me that we take the information we've got and do the best we can.
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