Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Signaling game - a trivia

Remember our post on signaling theorem? Here's a possible application on it. And feel free to answer this trivia.

A guy wearing Harvard t-shirt is enjoying a cup of coffee in a coffee shop in a mall with his 2-month old baby girl. The mom's shopping somewhere upstairs; but she could also be shopping somewhere in Orchard Road, no one can presume. Which kind of signaling do you think happened?

A. From the guy's perspective:
  1. I'm straight, don't bother to approach (if we're talking about Blok M Plaza, this is very relevant. Not that there's anything wrong with not being straight, as Jerry Seinfeld once said...).
  2. I'm happily married, don't bother to approach.
  3. Look at me, I'm a perfect husband and dad. Aren't I interesting?
  4. Look at me, my wife told me to stay here while she's shopping, and I do what she said...
B. From the baby's perspective:
  1. Look at my dad. He went to Harvard, so I'll go there under the legacy admission.
  2. Look at my dad. He went to Harvard. He must be rich and so must I (am I?).
  3. Look at my dad. He went to Harvard. Don't bother approac hme if you're not that smart.
  4. By the way, my dad went to Harvard under scholarships, so he's not that rich. That's why we only go to this mall.
C. From the wife's perspective:
  1. My husband's not available. Our baby is the territorialmarking.
  2. I have a submissive husband. He'd like to sit our baby while I'm shopping.
  3. Any other ideas...?
Signaling

11 comments:

  1. His wife is totally dictator?

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  2. AP.

    I think, in Indonesia, the signal sent by wearing Harvard t-shirt has some noises.

    In US or Europe, the signal should be clearer. Wearing the T-Shirt means that you are an alumnus of harvard or at least spent some studies there.

    While in the Indonesia, there are several possible effect :

    1. Waw. That guy come from Harvard. He must be very clever.

    2. Waw. his brother/sister must be Harvard Graduate

    3. Waw. He has been on US. May be, he just a tourist and go to Harvard University for "lookinga round", buy some stuff there.

    or may be :
    4. Waw. The T-Shirt is cool. I have to find that Shirt in Tanah Abang/Blok M. :D

    Thus, In Indonesia, wearing a Harvard T-Shirt is not merely a full signal of being a Harvard gradutes. the signal is very noisy there in Indonesia

    (For whom who know you, the signal must be very clear. We all know that u ARE a Harvard Alumni).

    Hhehehee.

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  3. I agree with Ado. Indonesia's real interesting cos most status symbols / "signals" you might have on you are easily faked.

    Perhaps that's why elaborate mobile phones are so popular in RI - hard to fake, v portable and reasonably visible.

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  4. Yes, a Harvard t-shirt may as well be a Hard Rock or a Disney World t-shirt. A Harvard KSG t-shirt, however, would be different. If people know about KSG, they'll look at the shirt and probably think, 'wow, a policy junkie' or 'KSG, what an arrogant bastard' (a Harvard B-School alumn would be more likely think of the latter).

    If they don't know what KSG is, that's probably fine for the t-shirt guy. Having known a few KSG alumni, I would think they probably won't care about the views of people who don't know about KSG anyway. This may or may not be true in the case of AP, of course.

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  5. Ha ha ha..

    So true, guys.. Moral of the story: when a signal becomes inflated, the market would look for other kind of signals...

    Ado -- who says this story's about me? :-) Because I have other kind of signal: my Liverpool FC shirt...

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  6. AP, I think your iconic TV appearance that gave away more signals than your football jersey :P

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  7. i'm not gay... not that there's anything wrong with that ha ha ha ha... the old seinfeld episode.
    and yea i agree with ado. i'm an alumn of ohio university and i wore the t-shirt once, only to find that the bootlegged versions are on sale Rp.5000 a piece down pasar ciputat!!

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  8. actually, I'd see a very tired father who couldn't walk another block with his wife who still has tons of stuff to buy. so he prefers to just sit tight and hold the baby so that the wife could go and buy whatever she needs to buy - faster without the baby - and go home so that he can have some good rest in a bathtub with a glass of chandon.

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  9. Right, the story is apparently not about AP. He mentioned about Orchard Road, while the farthest he could go , for the time being, is Plaza Senayan..That's another signal...:-)

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  10. I suspect the post, with the mention of the T-shirt thingy, is itself be some kind of a signal, to be (and already are) affirmed by the many readers' comments... ;-)

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  11. the most common signal in jakarta after i observed for 3 weeks: "Avanza"/"Xenia" and "Jazz". utility and cost consciousness.

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