Micromotives and Macrobehavior Quotes

“I define game theory as the study of how rational individuals make choices when the better choice among two possibilities, or the best choice among several possibilities, depends on the choices that others will make or are making.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“let me remind you of the particular characteristics of all of these behavior systems that I am trying to focus on. It is that people are impinging on other people and adapting to other people. What people do affects what other people do.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“If the option of taking the course pass-fail (without a letter grade) is available to all students, it is usually observed that there are some who will elect pass-fail no matter how many others do, some who will elect letter grades no matter how many elect pass-fail, and an intermediate group who will elect pass-fail if enough do but will choose letter grades if pass-fail is uncommon. Notice that the first and second groups’ behavior is independent of how the third group chooses, but not vice versa; the people whose behavior is uninfluenced nevertheless influence others.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Models tend to be useful when they are simultaneously simple enough to fit a variety of behaviors and complex enough to fit behaviors that need the help of an explanatory model.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Because people vary and because averages matter, there may be no sustainable critical mass; and the unravelling behavior, or initial failure to get the activity going at all, has much the appearance of a critical mass that is almost but not quite achieved. This is therefore a kindred but separate family of models.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“If a model meets the criterion of simplicity it will often, like the thermostat-controlled heating system, describe physical and mechanical systems as well as social phenomena, animal behavior as well as human, scientific principles as well as household activities. An example is “critical mass.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“The generic name for behaviors of this sort is critical mass. Social scientists have adopted the term from nuclear engineering, where it is common currency in connection with atomic bombs.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“The principle of critical mass is so simple that it is no wonder that it shows up in epidemiology, fashion, survival and extinction of species, language systems, racial integration, jaywalking, panic behavior, and political movements.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“The tipping model is a special case—a broad class of special cases—of critical-mass phenomena. Its characteristics are usually that people have very different cross-over points; that the behavior involves place of residence or work or recreation or, in general, being someplace rather than doing something; that the critical numbers relate to two or more distinct groups, and each group may be separately tipping out or tipping”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Two special terms have begun to come into currency to distinguish subclasses of critical-mass phenomena. One is tipping, and the other is lemons.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“The observed outcome may be one that everybody prefers, it may be one that nobody prefers, or it may be one that some prefer and others deplore.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“But whether the measure is the number of people engaged, or the number times the frequency or the length of time they engage in it, or the ratio of the number who do to the number who do not, or the amount of such activity per square foot or per day or per telephone extension, we can call it a “critical-mass” activity and a lot of people will know what we mean.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Furthermore, mass is proportionate to the number of atoms, and critical number could have been equally apt.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“If there is enough uranium so that half the neutrons produce two others, the process is self-sustaining and a “critical mass” of uranium is said to be present.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“I stay in line if everybody is standing politely in line, but if people begin to surge toward the ticket window I am alert to be—though never among the first—not among the last.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“At some point several appear to decide that the flow of pedestrians is large enough to be safe and they join it, enlarging it further and making it safe for a few who were still waiting and who now join. Soon, even the timid join what has become a crowd. The drivers see they no longer have any choice and stop.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Models often overlap. The measles epidemic is usually a critical-mass process.4 A succession of epidemics, with intervening periods in which the pool of susceptibles renews itself, corresponds to a cyclical model.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Measles vaccination shares some crucial features with the thermostat system but differs in important respects. A measles-epidemic model without vaccination will be different but recognizable as a member of the family. And”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“What is common to all of these examples is the way people’s behavior depends on how many are behaving a particular way, or how much they are behaving that way—how many attend the seminar how frequently”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Or, it goes the way of the dying seminar—fun but not enough fun, because there are not enough people to generate the loyalty and enthusiasm that would keep the number large and the absentee rate small.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“But it often looks as though the interest was there. The thing petered out in spite of interest. Nearly everybody, if asked, alleges that he’d have continued attending pretty regularly if enough others had cared enough to attend regularly enough to make it worthwhile”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“It enhances one’s appreciation of a model, and often the use one can make of it, to be aware of applications outside one’s own field. Recognition of the wide applicability of a model, or of a family of models, helps in recognizing that one is dealing with a very general or basic phenomenon, not something specialized or idiosyncratic or unique.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“When the supply at last gets back to normal, some years hence, replenishment will be at an abnormally low level, with a “famine” that will get worse for at least six years before it can begin to get better. And then the cycle can start over.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Numerous social phenomena display cyclical behavior, either in wave motion or in surges. The thermostat reminds us to look for the time lag, or for an accumulated inventory like the hot water.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior