The truth about male-female pairings!

page views:1 Publication date:2022-02-14

When marriage becomes a "transaction," we try to capitalize and quantify all issues, and through what we believe to be reasonable mathematical calculations, we try to make it appear fair.
But is the essence of marriage truly an exchange of benefits? Today, I'll introduce an experiment conducted by renowned MIT economist Dan Ariely. The results are interesting and quite common in our lives.
Researchers recruited 100 college students, half male and half female. They created 100 cards with the numbers 1 to 100 written on them.
The 50 odd-numbered cards were given to the males, and the 50 even-numbered cards to the females, but the students didn't know the numbers on their cards.
The cards were then unsealed and attached to the backs of the students.

Experimental Rules:

1. 100 students in total, males numbered odd numbers, females even numbers;
2. Numbered from 1 to 100, but they didn't know that 100 was the largest number and 1 was the smallest;
3. The numbers were attached to their backs, and they could only see others' numbers;
4. Everyone could say anything, but they couldn't reveal each other's numbers.
5. Experiment Requirements: Everyone must find a partner of the opposite sex. The higher the sum of their numbers, the higher the prize, and the prize money belongs to them.
6. There is a limited time for pairing.
Guess what will happen?
This experiment is simple: both men and women must find suitable partners of the opposite sex to maximize their total score.
There is a prize, multiplied by 10. For example, if male number 83 finds female number 74, they will receive (83+74)*10=$1570. However, if female number 2 finds male number 3, they will only receive $50.
Experiment Begins:
Since no one knows their own number, they first observe others. Soon, the men and women with high scores are identified, such as male number 99 and female number 100.
A large group of people surrounds them, all trying to persuade them to pair up.
"Come with me! I'll make you happy!"
"We're a match made in heaven!"
Yes, some people are born with a "goddess"/"god" aura... Everyone wants to be paired with the best "goddess"/"god."
But the monogamous system of humankind dictates that a person cannot be paired with N people at the same time. Therefore, they (the high-scoring ones) become very picky. Although they don't know their exact score, they know it must be higher than the average person.
Why? You can see it from the eager eyes of these suitors.
Why do people who have been goddesses since childhood appear more "noble, aloof, and arrogant" to outsiders? It's because they have been pursued by too many different kinds of boys since childhood. With so many suitors, how can they have time to be nice to each one? Being aloof and rejecting those who don't meet their standards is the best strategy.
Those suitors who are rejected have no choice but to settle for second best. Originally, their goal was to find someone with a score of 90+, but they gradually found that 80+ was acceptable, and even 70+ or 60+ would be acceptable.
But those with very low numbers fared much worse. They faced rejection and disdain everywhere they went.
One student later recounted that participating in the game changed his understanding of life... because he experienced the harsh realities of life in just a few hours—their numbers were so low (mostly single digits), finding a partner was incredibly difficult.
They ultimately came up with two solutions:
one was to find someone of similar ability to pair up, like pairing number 5 and number 6, even though the prize was only $110, it was better than nothing.
The other was to negotiate with the other person, offering a larger share of the prize money, such as a 30/70 or 40/60 split, or even a dinner afterwards. While the dinner would cost more than the prize money, not finding a partner was incredibly embarrassing. (This has real-world counterparts like transactional marriages: the terms of the transaction include houses, property, other material goods, intergenerational marriages, and sham marriages.)
After a long matching process, with time running out, a few people still hadn't found a match. These people had no choice but to hastily find someone to complete the task, because being single meant not receiving the prize money…
In the final countdown, those who hadn't found a match randomly found someone, while some college students insisted on not matching and ended the game single.

The experiment ended.
Psychologists found that the numbers behind the matching partners for the vast majority of people were very close to their own numbers. In other words, the ancient Chinese saying "marrying someone of equal social standing" still holds some truth.
For example, male number 55 had an 80% chance of his partner being a woman between 50 and 60; a difference of more than 20 between their numbers was extremely rare.
Can you guess who the female number 100's partner was?
Interestingly, the female number 100's partner wasn't male number 99, nor 97 or 95, but male number 73—a difference of 27! Why such a large difference?
It turns out that girl number 100 was blinded by her many suitors. Her strategy was to "hold back" (because she didn't know that 100 was the maximum number, nor did she know that she was number 100). She was still waiting for men with even higher numbers. Once everyone had been paired up, she finally started to panic. So she chose the man with the highest number among the remaining men, the lucky one number 73. She also tried to find men with numbers 90 and above, but they all already had girlfriends. It was unrealistic to ask them to abandon their current girlfriends to pair up with her, and besides, they wouldn't damage their reputation for such a small amount of money.
From this, we can summarize many lessons:

1. Because there are too many people and the space is too small, you can't possibly look at the numbers on everyone's back; (spatial, social, and geographical limitations)
2. You only need to see who is surrounded by the most people; that person has a higher number, while those who are alone and deserted are definitely those with lower numbers. This method allows you to quickly filter out your target; (majority rule, halo effect)
3. People with lower numbers generally have a tough time pursuing people with higher numbers, because it's not easy for someone with a higher number to accept someone with a lower number. Therefore, the pursuer needs to put in more effort, but more likely, no matter how hard you try, the other person will ignore you.
This psychological experiment is essentially a simplified version of an experiment on human romantic behavior.
When we meet someone of the opposite sex, we instinctively begin to evaluate their value; this is entirely subconscious. However, human value is very difficult to assess. No one puts a number on their back, and people often deliberately exaggerate their value. As for the methods and tools of exaggeration, they are varied and numerous, making it impossible to accurately identify them all.
Moreover, we encounter far more than 100 people in our lives, and we face a much more complex environment, which multiplies the difficulty of making decisions. Precisely because the choice is so difficult, humans have evolved some very simple indicators. For example, we tend to base our judgments on the judgments of others.
The experiment showed us that if love is a precise matching game, the most important thing is your own value (i.e., the numerical value behind it), while the methods you use to pursue love may be secondary. However, there's a crucial difference between this experiment and reality: human society is far too complex. A person's value isn't easily demonstrated, and it's difficult to judge someone's worth.
Furthermore, everyone's standards of value differ, which is why we see so many diverse love stories—Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying, Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, Romeo and Juliet… These stories, passed down through generations, prove that in every era, love stories considered "impossible" by the world still occur.
Who are these "the world"? They are the "majority"—your neighbors, aunts, uncles, classmates from the next school, even your parents.
The trends in society are determined by these "majority" people, so when you see societal value tendencies, you see the standards of the majority; but are the majority's standards always correct? They may not even know what standards to use to approach love.
Following the crowd is the best strategy for most of them to "express their opinions." To some neighbors and relatives, marriage is a business transaction; women have a depreciation rate, so the earlier they marry, the better; men choose women as if they are renting rather than buying…
In fact, as rational economic agents, this might not be wrong; marriage is essentially an exchange of benefits, just as everything in economics can be quantified and replaced with equivalent monetary value. However, we are all emotional beings with weaknesses. The magic of marriage lies in the fact that this exchange of benefits is sometimes unequal, and the reason for this inequality is what we call a variable.
This variable is called "emotion."
I remember when I was studying economics, my teacher once explained the economics of love to the students:
"Girl, one day a millionaire proposes to you, willing to give you everything, which is a wonderful thing; do the math, you think you've gained a million; but at the same time, a multi-millionaire also falls for you, so the opportunity cost of marrying the millionaire is ten million; that is to say, if you marry the millionaire, you will lose nine million."
This is economics.
I remember my teacher also humorously saying that he was very glad his wife hadn't studied economics; she was very beautiful but he had no money, but she still married him.
This is love.
Whether you are swept up by these ideas or have your own views on love is entirely up to you.

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The truth about male-female pairings!

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