Civilization Differences in Risk Taking in Adversarial Situations

Sukaran Arora

10/08/2015

Source: orientalreview.org

Chassy et al., Cognition, 141 (2015) 36-40

Introduction

• Civilization: group of states sharing similar values

• Types of crisis & strategies:

Hostility

Spinoff

Brinkmanship

• Framing of situation as globally positive or negative is a key factor

• Perception of situations and the resulting risk-taking attitudes are rooted in cultural values

Chess as a domain

World Segmentation

Ref. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of the world order. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Measure of Risk : Standard Deviation around Mean

• 3 Main opening in chess:

Pawn to King 4 (1. e4)

Pawn to Queen 4 (1. d4)

Other first moves

• Using Fritz database of 1,546,292 complete games played between 1625 & 2009) and

analyzing the pattern of wins, draws and losses, following values of σ were obtained

Opening σ (%) Classification

1.e4 41.45 Risky

1.d4 40.02 Conservative

Other first moves 40.64 Mixed

Results (Open Aggression)

• Jewish are pre-dominantly risk-avoidant players

• Chinese and Orthodox civilizations are not predominantly risk-seeking

• Buddhist have the boldest approach to risk

Fig. 1. Proportion of risky, conservative and mixed strategies as a function of civilizations

Results (Avoiding Conflict)

Conclusions

• Buddhist experts used the riskiest strategy nearly 35% more than the Jewish experts

• Civilization values influence the perception of risk

Some are more rewarding towards risk-taking attitude

Some reward engagement in battle or a will to change the status quo

Some are just impulsive and misread intentions (Germany, World War 1)

• The peaceful measure of avoiding conflict reflects an attitude towards saving energy