If you have investments, or might someday, this one’s worth checking out. The game is simple: there are three doors, and clicking on them gets you points. Your goal is simply to maximize the number of points you get.
I’m mentioning my performance in the spoiler below. You should not read it until you’ve played the game–trust me on this one.I actually ended up switching less often in the second round, although not by much.
Five switches in round 1 (2100ish), zero switches in round 2 (2400ish).
I think I am a bit irrational but not much. Then again I am still waiting for my superpowers to activate themselves. I passed puberty awhile ago so they should kick in any time now.
I switched doors 24 times the first round and none the second time. I took the test again and did not swith the first or second time. My score for switching was 1161. My scores for not switching was 2446, 2406 and 2446 again.
Meh, just as I already knew, I am not irrational. Cute little game, though.
InterestingAfter the first couple of clicks I decided that switching got me nowhere and just stayed with the middle door. Final score = 2300 or so
As near as I can tell, all three doors give the same mean points, but the variance increases left to right.
Looks like I’m “rational”.I looked in each door once, and went back to the one that had the highest number. Never switched again. Ended up with about 2200 points each time.
There’s more to the game than you explained, and a bit more to it than the site explained.
You start with 50 clicks. Click on a closed door, and it opens, but you get no points for opening a door. Open another door, and the first one closes. You use one of your non-scoring clicks for every change of doors. Change 20 times, and you have only 29 scoring opportunities. Change twice, and you have 47 scoring opportunities (the first click never scores.)
Why is it irrational to want to keep your options open?
In this case it’s because you already have an open door with guaranteed points on every click. Changing doors means having to use two clicks to get points. Why take a chance on that when you have guaranteed points with every click?
Don’t know how rational I am, but I’m certainly lazy and/or boring
Chose the middle door every time for both rounds. Got 24somethingsomething both times.
Opportunity cost.[spoiler]In this game, with about 50 chances to earn points, each time you switch you give up about 2% of your potential score. At the beginning, when you know nothing about the distributions, switching is useful. The distributions could have wildly different means, so it makes sense to sample each door for a short time.
Once you find out they’re about the same, you have to decide if it’s worth 2% to switch a last time to the highest. And when you’ve settled on the door you’re happy with, it’s irrational to switch again, given that the distribution is fixed.[/spoiler]
This doesn’t quite address the game linked, but as mentioned here, when there’s no cost of switching, the optimal strategy is to figure out which door has the highest payoff and then sticking with it until the end. There’s a lot more to read there if you’re interested.
[spoiler]I switched around a little the first time, then realized that there was a buy-in cost and stuck with just one door, got about 2350 points.
The second time, I got one door scoring then switched to a second door before it disappeared, then just stuck with it - and got about 2300 points. I switched just once after starting a scoring streak, then realized what was going on, and didn’t switch again.[/spoiler]
Alas, it doesn’t measure the ways that I’m irrational. So it tells me I’m rational.
The problem with this kind of test is that it just measures one kind of decision making process. Rationality/irrationality is not a Boolean: people can be rational in some aspects fo their lives, and profoundly irrational in others.
I’m the most rational of them all. After clicking on all the doors and getting zero points I stopped playing that silly game.
I switched 4 more times on the 2nd round, but made 50 more points. So… shrugs I dunno.
I switched doors a total of 5 times in the first game, and at that point I was convinced it was all random. I didn’t switch any in the second game.
It took me a few clicks to “get” the game at all!
You switched 3 times less when the doors were shrinking.
More frequent switching when the doors are shrinking is most likely a reflection of an irrational tendency to keep your options open.
This tendency cost you points in the game, but it could have much larger implications in life…
Since I did not do what they say I did (at least in a small way), I suppose I’m not irrational. Ha! As if…
First set of doors I got 1733. Next set 1731. Whatever.
I didn’t bother to read the instructions.
In the first game, I switched twice and got 2269 points. In the second, I switched five times and got 2240 points. Just like eleanorigby I was then informed that (a) I chose to switch more often in the first game and (b) this cost me points.
Now that’s irrational, if you ask me.