Tit For Tat

[Turtle]

___Some years ago in the course of developing some game theory strategies, a singular preeminent strategy emerged for playing multiple 'games' wherin a play is a choice to cooperate or not in a blind exchange. (See Scientific American articles I think ?)

___Anyway, this preeminent strategy is called Tit For Tat & it simply says always cooperate until defaulted against & then always default yourself. It is proven the worst this can result in over multiple plays is a draw.

___I suggest it's not a bad strategy in real life, & in fact possibly the best. Hard to stick with because it forces some seeminly brutal decisions like when your best friend betrays you you must never trust them again & other similar scenarios.

___What do you all think?

[C1ay]

Here's an interesting article on the subject.

[Queso]

i have heard about this in songs before, but always thought it was like some strange british terminology. pretty cool stuff.

[bumab]

There's an interesting book on the subject of game theory and that stratagy as it relates to societial evolution, called Nonzero. Interesting, if a little surreal at the end.

[zadojla]

___What do you all think?

I consciously use a "tit-for-tat" strategy in the real world. Whenever a co-worker "messes with" me, (i.e. try to blame my staff for something they didn't do, call out sick when we are short-handed, etc.), I pay them back immediately (publicly show how they are lying, deny their next vacation request). Then I go back to being sweet and reasonable until the next infraction. It is surprisingly effective, and seems to avoid making actual enemies.

[Turtle]

___I clearly forgot the part where you get to be nice again. There is a lot more to this now than I thought.

[Queso]

without the after-part of being nice, i believe you would just be considered uptight! this sounds like a great way to show people not to mess with you, but you're still a good person.

[Qfwfq]

IMV Zadojla's is a great strategy, unfortunately there are cases in which it can't be applied. This has happened to me more than once because of favouritisms and you often can't do much when it's superiors that are being unfair. If the boss only get's angry and doles out worse consequences when you point out where the real blame was, what can you do? It's even worse when customers blame you unfairly and you're not in a position to take any measures.

 

An example of this type of strategy working fine is a story a guy told me years ago, when he had just begun to work for an importation service. His boss knew his stuff and, when a supplier had pulled a smart trick by nitpicking on the exact text of his telex message, sometime later he phoned that supplier and said very simply to have a couple of train wagons of peaches ready. After a while the supplier called back and said "The peaches are ready, where do I send them to?" and my friends boss said "What peaches?". The supplier was furious because peaches don't last long and the wagons are an expense to rent and threatened lawsuit. The anwer was: "If you don't have a fax or telex from me, or a recording of a phone call, you'd better just find a customer yourself."

 

After that, the supplier was always very cooperative and would always phone to check that his faxes were OK and not misunderstood or anything.

[Fishteacher73]

This strategy works pretty good for classroom management. I lay the smack down on a few early on about the things that I really do not tollerate in my class and let thenm know that there are rules that I tend to let slide (Food, cd players, etc.). If they like the degree of freedom they have they need to follow the rules that I have.

[zadojla]

unfortunately there are cases in which it can't be applied.

I am well aware of this. In my group there are three equal managers (I am one). One of them is much less experienced, and has other flaws as well, but is our boss's favorite, so he can do no wrong. I have been taking the approach of laying low, and letting him be hung by his inexperience, because our boss is very demanding and unforgiving of error. We just have to wait for him to botch a few things.

[Fishteacher73]

Why would this scinerio not apply? IMO it seems like you have a bit of jelously going on and instead of helping your co-worker you are letting them wander into problems because the boss favors him, not because of action of his own.

[zadojla]

Perhaps you are correct. Accepting the promotion to manager last year was one of the top five mistakes I've made in my life. I hate this job, I'm miserable, and it's hard to think clearly. I should have stayed an analyst, and laughed my *** off at the goings-on around me.

[Qfwfq]

IMO it seems like you have a bit of jelously going on and instead of helping your co-worker you are letting them wander into problems because the boss favors him, not because of action of his own.

Zadojla didn't specify what his peer's attitude is and I kind of supposed there was blame on him as well as the boss. In this case I would agree with Zadojla because it is a peer and not a superior.

 

What may happen when both are superiors is that the one gets the boss on to you due to his or her botches or someone else's. Actually, it can happen with a peer too, especially when not newer and considered more responsible although not quite your direct superior, it depends on so many things. More than once I have had my share of consequences for their botches. If Zadojla's new peer thinks he's more of a whiz than he really is, it might be a good think to let him find himself in a tight spot or to.

[Fishteacher73]

I was not trying to shake a finger at you zad... Just pointing out a loophole in the logic...Speaking of promotions...I had this discussion with my father (a petrophysical engineer) and he was complaining about modern corp. stucture. You essentailly move up until you reach a postion that you can no longer excell in. at this point you are stuck in management and not doing what you were good at....any way just a complaint...

[Turtle]

It's called the Peter Principle; in short it says that in a company situation a person will rise (be promoted) to their level of incompetence.(sp)

___I'm not sure I'm on board with the idea that you can't always apply Tit-for-Tat. I think it always applies & what is overlooked here is that the the strategy says the best one can do in the long run when dealing with shurkers(uncooperativeness) is come to a draw. Under that canopy, if one plays to win , one is destined to fail.

[Queso]

yeah it actually really is. even though you ended up in a mental ward, i'm glad you didn't listen to your boss and treat people that way. if somebody tried to tell me to do that, i would steal their stapler and never look back. :)

[Turtle]

___Therin lies the problem you see; knowing what to do is not enough. It is the execution of the rule/strategy that I have no facility with. Yes I should have said no, that is wrong; I at least thought it was wrong. But confronting people is so simply terrifying to me that I would rather take a beating than do it.

___So while I like the idea of Tit For Tat a lot because of its simplicity & efficacy, I have had little succes in actually applying it to my interactions. My basic approach I have adopted is simply to not interact; works OK. Not recomended as a general strategy though;mmmmm...maybe a science fiction story about a world where nobody gets together with anybody!? Tat for Tit